WEST Mercia has recorded an alarming 70 per cent increase in the number of people charged with a race-hate crime.

Crimes include racially-aggravated assault, criminal damage and yobs hurling racist abuse in the street.

Crown Prosecution Service figures released today show that 61 people were charged with a race-hate crime last year, compared to 36 the previous year.

The leap compared with an increase of 20 per cent across England and Wales, from 3,105 cases to 3,728.

The statistics also throw a question mark over West Mercia Police's ability to spot racist crimes.

The force correctly identified racist motives in 52 - or 85 per cent - of cases.

But in the remaining nine cases the charges had to be uprated by the CPS.

The national average identified by the police was 89 per cent.

Police forces have been given special training in identifying race-hate crime, following the ground-breaking inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

"We want to see more of these incidents identified as racist by the police," said Anne Collins, spokeswoman for the Crown Prosecution Service.

"There have been improvements year-on-year, but if the police don't pick it up as racially-motivated then we have to flag it up after receiving the files."

Furthermore, West Mercia police failed to supply a copy of the racist incident report to speed up the prosecution process in 69 per cent of cases.

But this was better than the national average which saw forces provide reports in only 18 per cent of cases.

"It means we don't have all the details to assess the case, so we have to make calls to the police to get that information," added Ms Collins.

Of the 61 people charged with a race-hate crime in West Mercia last year, 46 were prosecuted, with the other 15 cases dropped.

No comparison was given with the number of cases dropped in 2000/1.

The Race Equality Council will comment once they have reviewed the figures.

At the time of going to press no one from West Mercia Police was available to comment on the statistics.