BRITAIN’S MOST senior black male prosecutor has spoken of his determination to crack down on hate crime.

Lionel Idan, who leads on hate crime for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said he was aggressively pursuing longer sentences for crimes with a racial element.

The tough-talking Ghana-born barrister said the CPS had successfully prosecuted 10,679 hate crimes in the last year, and the courts had imposed heavier tariffs in 79% of those cases.

Latest Home Office figures show that Britain is experienced a new spike in racially motivated hate with a 12% rise in the 12 months leading up to March this year.

But Mr Idan, who is also the Chief Crown Prosecutor for South London, told The Voice he is determined to crack down on the problem.

He said: “We take hate crime very, very seriously. It’s something that is so abhorrent. We’re working so hard to try and improve our outcomes, trying to prove how we tackle hate crime.

“And for me, one of the key parts is around engaging with our communities. If there is no confidence in the system, or us as an agency, you won’t have victims supporting prosecutions.”

“It’s not just the impact on you as the victim; it’s your wider community, but also other communities who suffer from hate crime. I feel it as well.

“So yes, it’s something we take very seriously and I’m working very closely in my role with the National Police Chiefs Council to make sure that we respond to this. Whenever we get convictions, we go after harsher sentences.”

Mr Idan developed a reputation for going in hard on hate crime as a senior prosecutor in the West Midlands – where he also oversaw the prosecution of Britain’s biggest trafficking gang – before returning to the capital.

He said the CPS were mindful of anti-black racism – or Afriphobia – as a particular type of race hate. “I’ll give you a quick example; if you take recent events and football which we’re targeting, black players in particular, you should see how importantly we’ve taken it.

“The priority that’s been shown on that, no one whether you’re in football or outside the stadium or online should be subjected to the sort of racist and I won’t repeat some of the words that were used in some of the comments and gestures towards black people.”

Asked about the race hate that Meghan and Harry have received, Mr Idan commented: “No one, whoever you are, whatever you do, no one should ever be at risk of being targeted simply because of who they are.

“And that’s absolutely devastating for any individual. Absolutely. So yes, for me – as hate crime lead – we will prosecute perpetrators of hate crime.”

The Voice also spoke to Mr Idan about his own journey, including the barriers he faced. He talked about failing to get a pupillage after qualifying as a barrister, working his way up from the bottom and being mistaken for a defendant in court. Listen to the full interview here.