PENNINE Police's Hate Crime Unit was set up one year ago in the wake of the Burnley riots. It was designed to crack down on all forms of hate crime.

Reporter NICK EVANS went to meet the people in charge to look at progress...

ON June 2 last year a group of 40 drunken yobs went on a racial rampage in Burnley following the England v Sweden World Cup football match.

It was an ugly incident which included racist attacks on taxi drivers parked near the bus station and chants of racist abuse as the thugs paraded through the town centre.

Despite the disturbances, however, police were on hand in less than a minute to disperse the troublemakers and restore calm, a speed of reaction put down to intelligence gathering by the division's Hate Crime Unit which was aware of high tension in the town on that day.

The awareness of likely trouble on June 2 and the subsequent convictions of nine of the worst troublemakers demonstrates the two main functions of the unit -- scanning the mood of the Pennine area to gauge potential trouble and investigating hate crimes.

In another major success, a life-long Clarets fan was banned from soccer matches for three years after goading rival supporters.

Drunken Paul Donald McNeil, 21, was said to have made Nazi salutes at opposing Tottenham Hotspur followers, a club with a lot of Jewish fans.

Food industry worker McNeil, of Ainsty Road, Ainsty, Wetherby, also waved a flag bearing the words Burnley Suicide Squad and the image of a dagger at the match at Turf Moor last November. His conviction was largely due to the work of the Hate Crime Unit investigation.

The overall aim of the unit -- the only one of its kind in the country outside the Metropolitan Police -- is to combat all forms of hate crime, not just racially motivated crime, where people are singled out and victimised because of who they are or what they believe.

The Association of Chief Police Officers defines a hate crime as "a crime where the perpetrator's prejudice against any identifiable group of people is a factor in determining who is victimised". Crimes could include race crimes, homophobic crimes, crimes against disabled people or someone from a particular religion.

Detective Sergeant Dave Groombridge, one of seven officers at the unit headed up by Detective Inspector Graeme Fearn, said: "We are not here to be selective. We investigate crimes which are committed across the board, regardless of the circumstances or origins of the victims.

"We are here to combat a particular type of crime which is eating away at Burnley, a town which is on the map for all the wrong reasons and we are trying to do something about it."

One of the most important aspects of the unit's work is intelligence gathering in order to assess the mood of the area and any likely outbreak of disorder.

Three full time posts are dedicated to the job of scanning -- reading the local press, talking to community leaders and partner agencies -- in order to gauge the mood of the community.

As part of the intelligence gathering process the unit produces a weekly Disorder Risk Assessment document, discussed at weekely briefings by senior officers and representatives from borough and county councils and other agencies like the fire service. A copy also goes to the Home Office.

The work of the unit has won friends in high places, including as high up as Whitehall. It has been adopted as part of the advice given by the Home Office in regard of setting up Community Cohesion projects.

So far the unit seems to have been a success. Since its establishment a year ago the detection rate for hate crimes has risen from around 20 per cent to somewhere approaching 50 per cent.

Det Sgt Groombridge said: "Whereas before the Hate Crime Unit was set up crimes were being investigated by the CID or other areas of the police force, we now have a dedicated team of people to investigate and monitor hate crimes.

"As well as having a positive effect on the percentage of cases we can detect it means that more people are coming forward and reporting hate crimes because they are satisfied with the speedy response they now get from the police."