A number of gravestones were toppled, with others painted with swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti at a Jewish cemetery in Manchester.
Greater Manchester Police are currently investigating the incident and believe that the gravestones at the Jewish Cemetery, Rochdale Road, Blackley were vandalised sometime between 16:00 on 22 June and 15.30 the following day.
Inspector Mike Reid of the Integrated Neighbourhood Policing Team said:
“This is a sickening and cruel act of racism.
“The vandalism of a gravestone is, in itself, a sickening act but to violate the memory of those resting in the cemetery still further by daubing racial slurs on the graves is truly repulsive. I cannot begin to get into the mind of someone who would commit such an atrocity.”
The police have said that the vandalism will be treated as a hate crime because of the “clear racial motivation”, which will allow the courts to impose harsher punishments.
