Audio recordings reveal man threatening to kill charity workers

However, he said he had been particularly concerned about Brown’s threat to burn down the Acsoni building – because it was also occupied by a south Belfast charity that supports young children and mothers.

“If he had damaged the building, he would have impacted the residents of south Belfast, of which they are Catholics, Protestants, blacks, whites, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Muslims,” he said.

“The impact would have been profound, and not only the harm on the building, but what if there had been people in the building when this act that he was threatening to, you know, commit happened? So it was a real concern.”

Brown was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for three years. The sentence was enhanced due to hostility, which means that a racial motivation had been proven.

But according to Victim Support, which advocates for victims of race hate crimes, that does not happen in the majority of cases.

Michael Avila, a managing consultant for the organisation, told BBC News NI: “Currently you cannot be convicted for a hate crime in Northern Ireland.

“You’re convicted for, say, assault. Potentially then the judge may add on at the sentencing stage that there was a hate motivation and maybe stricter sentencing. But that’s quite rare.”

Avila said that did a “disservice” to victims.

Figures obtained by BBC News NI from the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) showed that in 2024/25, of the 79 defendants who were convicted of a racially-motivated offence, 21 were recorded as having received an enhanced sentence due to the aggravating feature of their offences.

New legislation to address this issue and the wider rise in race hate is progressing through the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Earlier this year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) introduced its Sentencing Bill, which is aimed at changing how racially-motivated hate crimes are prosecuted.

It involves introducing a “statutory aggravator model”, which the DOJ said would “provide a system-wide response to the criminalisation of the hate element of crimes”.

It said the bill “requires the court to treat the offence more seriously, to state that the offence is so aggravated, to record the conviction in such a way that shows the aggravation, and, in imposing the sentence, to explain how the aggravation affects the sentence imposed”.

The new model was recommended in a report six years ago by former judge Desmond Marrinan.

Avila, from Victim Support, said implementing the model would keep any hate motivation consistent from the moment the crime is reported to the moment it is passed to the Public Prosecution Service, through trial and to sentencing.

If you have been affected by any of the topics raised in this article, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line.