Hate crime?

Our society has moved towards, or some might say reverted to, a legislative approach that punishes those who commit crimes not solely on the basis of their actions, but on the reasoning behind those actions and the identity of the victim.

If I steal a bicycle from my friend, and admit in court that I do so because his name is Tim, and I am proud of vehemently disliking people called Tim, perhaps I'm a member of an anti-Tim society, should I be punished more seriously than if I had simply stolen his bike because I wanted his bike? You may think that would be nonsensical.

In April 2005, section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 was implemented. This section of the act doesn't create new offences, but imposes a duty upon courts to increase the sentence for any offence aggravated by hostility based on the victim's sexual orientation or disability.
Race has similar legal protection. The court, in deciding on the sentence to be imposed, must treat evidence of hostility based on disability, orientation, or presumed orientation as something that makes the offence more serious.
The writer Gerald Warner, in an article for the Telegraph, calls for the repeal of "hate" laws, describing their "grossly distorted sentencing system which has created two-tier justice" citing section 82 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which lead to guidelines of significant increases for the sentence where a racial motive was involved.

Warner argues that considering some crimes to be aggravated by virtue of the intention of the criminal and the identity of the victim "is a reversion to the Middle Ages when assaulting a Norman baron meant death, while attacking a churl entailed a fine ... By imposing a much heavier sentence for an assault on a member of a statutorily specified minority than on an elderly person whose life may subsequently be shortened by the shock, we have again created legally privileged sections of society."

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