ABSTRACT

Historically, all societies have had criminal offences which relate to religion. In the Christian West, the main religious criminal offences have been blasphemy (defamation of Christianity), heresy (expression of unacceptable religious views) and desecration (damage to, or destruction of, sacred objects and buildings). However, in Britain today the only remaining element of these old offences is the crime of blasphemy and all other offences which relate to religion are, in general, dealt with under the ordinary criminal law. For example, a burglar who breaks into a church and steals a chalice would be prosecuted for the crime of burglary and the fact that his offence also involved sacrilege of a church would not involve any separate charge. However, in addition to blasphemy, some old offences involving disorder in churches or cemeteries remain on the statute book and in 2001 a new category of religiously aggravated offences was created. An offence of stirring up religious hatred was created in the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 and that offence is discussed in Chapter 8.