The police force which dealt with the Oldham riots said racial crimes rose by more than a quarter during the last year.

Greater Manchester Police said a rise of 27% could mean more people were now reporting race-related incidents.

Of the 4,567 hate crimes reported between April 2001 and March 2002, 82.1% were race-related, it said.

Almost a third took place in Oldham, which suffered three nights of disturbances between white and Asian youths in May 2001.

'Public trust'

Assistant Chief Constable Ian Seabridge said: "We have seen in the past that where we have tried to encourage the reporting of offences against members of the ethnic community we know that initially there can be seen to be a significant rise.

"We see that as an important part of people trusting us as people become more confident that we will take their complaint seriously."

The force said there had also been an 18.1% drop in stop-searches, a 7.4% reduction in complaints and a 2.9% increase in ethnic minority officers.