THERE will always be individuals who hate other people simply because they’re different in some way to themselves.

The reason they take this difference to extremes is known only to them and definitely says more about them and their inadequacies than about their victims.

However, this is how “hate crimes” originate and they are not to be tolerated by reasonable people. These crimes can range from cruel taunts and worse towards people of a different ethnicity or culture or sexuality, to doing something abhorrent to their beliefs like impaling a pig’s head outside a mosque.

In many ways, we are a much more tolerant society today but, sadly, those who hate on this level are much more extreme. Perpetrators must be found and punished – not just so they realise their behaviour is unacceptable but so everyone can see what happens to criminals and how a fair and equal society works.