Home Secretary concerned over law enforcement in antisemitic crimes
Suella Braverman has told parliament's home affairs select committee she shares concerns over the failure to prosecute suspects in the May 2021 Palestine car convoy that shocked the community
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has expressed concern about law enforcement in relation to antisemitic hate crime in the wake of the decision to drop charges in the Palestine car convoy case.
Braverman had been asked by Labour MP Carolyn Harris at a parliamentary committee to consider a “review” into “how the police and the CPS” had looked into the Palestine car convoy case, after charges against the remained two suspects were dropped last week.
The home secretary told the home affairs select committee hearing on Wednesday: “I do share your concern that enforcing against it (antisemitic hate crime) is, in some regards, not sufficiently done.”
Braverman added she had “members of my own family who are Jewish” and said it was a “sorry state of affairs” when the community had to rely on the “fantastic work” of the CST because “they have not been able to rely on public policing and law enforcement.”
Harris, the MP for Swansea East, had expressed concerned that the case had been dropped “regarding several men or several persons who had driven down the Finchley Road last year chanting very, very antisemitic chants at members of the Jewish community.”
She said she recognised that the CPS acted independently of the home office,but added “we have communities who are very scared, very concerned and very marginalised that this kind of behaviour has gone unchallenged.”
Braverman said she wanted to “take this issue away” but added she would “not commit to a full review” as there were “many, many reviews going on at the home office and all for important reasons.”
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