A hate crime is defined as 'Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility....

A hate incident is any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someone’s prejudice towards them because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender.

Evidence of the hate element is not a requirement. You do not need to personally perceive the incident to be hate related. It would be enough if another person, a witness or even a police officer thought that the incident was hate related.

https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/hco/...

Some truly terrifying sentences in there. All based on the perception of someone else.