Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) found in a review that victims had been let down after being targeted because of their personal characteristics including race, sexual orientation and religion.

Its report identified large-scale failings in the way in which hate crimes were handled.

It found that a policy to visit victims has not been applied though it also found examples of good practice.

The report comes amid new figures showing a sharp increase in hate crimes, up by 57 per cent between 2014-15 to 2016-17, most of which were motivated by racial hatred.

The inspectorate noted crimes spiked after terrorist attacks and during the Brexit campaign.

It states: “We have shown in our report that incidents of hate crime ‘spike’ after national events.”

“So there is a real possibility that there will be a similar increase in reports in 2019 if, as is anticipated by the government, the United Kingdom formally leaves the European Union.”

Suresh Grover of The Monitoring Group, a charity for victims of racial hatred, said: “There is an alarming and worsening situation for victims of race hate crimes over the last two years. We dealt with over 300 cases. Many of our clients do not get the support they need. In most cases evidence is not collated promptly and the communication with them is poor.

“This is leading to a breakdown in trust and failure to deal with the problem on a longterm basis. Our research across the UK shows a marked decline in BAME-led support groups. We are travelling backwards to a pre-Macpherson era where victims had to rely on their own resilience to survive and navigate their future.”

UK government figures indicate that in 2012-13 there were 42,255 recorded hate crimes, which increased to 80,393 by 2016-17.