Prosecuting Jew hate: there are times when we didn’t make the right call, CPS admits

The lead prosecutor for hate crime in England and Wales has admitted his officials have sometimes made the wrong call when deciding how to take suspected antisemites to court.

Lionel Idan, a chief crown prosecutor in the London area, told Jewish News that the Crown Prosecution Service wanted to learn from its errors and correct them as quickly as possible.

His remarks came after the CPS was criticised by Jewish groups for dropping charges against two football fans suspected of chanting an antisemitic song at a passenger on a Ryanair flight last year.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism said that decision had been “beyond belief”.

But in this week’s newspaper Idan wrote: “In the recent case of two West Ham supporters who were filmed racially abusing passengers on a flight … it was not possible to prove to the court that their appalling behaviour occurred while the plane was in UK airspace where our courts have jurisdiction.

“I know that this is a frustrating outcome for many both within and outside the Jewish community and I would like to reassure you that the decision in this case was not made lightly.”

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He said there were “many other cases” in which convictions were secured for Jew hate, referring to an eight-year sentence for an individual who posted antisemitic material through letterboxes and the successful prosecution of a radio host.

Idan added that working with the Community Security Trust, the charity set up to protect British Jews, had helped prosecutors better understand how antisemitism manifests in various ways.

“This includes long-established tropes and stereotypes, but also emerging language, references and behaviours which can be considered antisemitic. Our guidance also highlights the line where anti-Zionism can become antisemitism,” he wrote.

He said the CPS was also planning a question-and-answer session with Jewish communities and particularly in strictly-Orthodox areas where he said crime was currently under-reported.