Racially-aggravated crime rises massively in Stirling area

Stirling’s top police officer has insisted racism is “not an issue” in the area, despite an increase in the number of racially-aggravated crimes.

Presenting to Stirling Council’s public safety committee on August 22, Police Scotland’s Chief Inspector Sarah McArthur highlighted the 146.2% rise in detections of racially-aggravated harassment and conduct between 2023-24 and 2022-23.

She said: “Positively, our detection rate in Stirling is higher than the force detection rate.”

The report presented to the committee shows 32 incidents took place in 2023-24, compared to 13 the year before.

But the senior officer stressed that during the reporting period for the public safety committee, seven crimes of a racial nature were reported – fewer than during the previous reporting period.

Racist abuse is ‘secondary to an argument’, say police

Chief Inspector McArthur said each incident was “in their own right, really unacceptable,” before providing further context for some of the seven offences.

The first incident took place at a homeless accommodation centre, another was a road-rage incident and one was was a neighbour dispute that is currently being managed by local community police.

Other victims included a door steward and a shopkeeper, while the final incident involved parents of children who had fallen out.

“Police Scotland will not stand for any racial incidents,” the inspector said.

“But, I think the important thing out of all of those is that the context of them is that they’re isolated incidents.

“These aren’t people who have been sought out by somebody who has sought out to abuse them. It’s secondary to an argument, which has happened for all of these incidents.

“We will tackle them, but I think it just gives you some context there that there is not an issue for us.”

‘We’re fortunate that our numbers are low’

Roddy Irvine, Police Scotland’s divisional commander for Forth Valley, who was also present at the committee meeting, said: “We’re fortunate that our numbers are low in Stirling and Forth Valley, which gives Sarah almost the luxury to discuss them on a sort of case-by-case basis.

“And I think the context that Sarah provided is really useful.

“As Sarah said, every single incident is unacceptable – it’s unacceptable behaviour.

“But I would be particularly worried if we had people who were going out and targeting people based on their ethnicity.

“And what we’re seeing, as Sarah said, is an incident and, when it escalates or becomes an argument or becomes a shoplifting, someone’s throwing out a deeply inappropriate phrase, but they’re not attending for that purpose. And the argument didn’t start for that purpose.”

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