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Shifting demographics in East London are also fuelling incidents. In Tower Hamlets and Newham, Asian communities sense encroachment from the growth of the City and Canary Wharf and the stirrings of gentrification since the successful 2012 Olympic bid.

There is resentment that unemployment levels remain high and incomes low in the Bangladeshi community while new middle-class immigrants push up house prices.

As a result, the tensions of the 1960s, when the poor white communities felt threatened by the influx of West Indian and Asian immigrants, are once more being raised, but this time it is the Asians who feel their community is imperilled by the white arrivals.

Elsewhere in the borough of Tower Hamlets, one police officer said that he had seen a rise in antisocial behaviour incidents which might be racially motivated.

He said: “We are seeing a new phenomenon. Asian gangs used to fight turf wars with one another. But there have been attacks on young, white professionals buying new properties here because they are seen as moving into a Bengali neighbourhood.”

It was in this fraught and changing environment that Mr Yates was murdered. A judge thinks his death was not the result of a racist attack. His mother begs to disagree.

But because of the discomfort such cases cause, there are few voices prepared to speak out in support of Mrs Yates.

The Commission for Racial Equality, asked about anti-white racism, said that there was little, if any, research on the issue. The London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, where Mr Yates lived, said its community cohesion unit did not want to comment.

People from minority communities are most likely to be victims of racist crime.

Results from the 2002-03 British Crime Survey show that less than 1 per cent of white people had experienced a crime that they thought was racially motivated. This compares with 2 per cent for the black community and 3 per cent among Asian groups.

But 1 per cent of whites amounts to a substantial number of people — and a growing problem.

THE RACIAL ELEMENTS

Ross Parker, 17, was beaten and stabbed to death in Peterborough in 2001. Racial tension was running high in the days after September 11. A judge said the killing had been “racist”. But the prosecution did not present the issue of racial motivation to the jury for fear of complicating the case. Shaied Nazir, Ahmed Ali Awan and Sarfraz Ali were jailed for murder.

Gavin Hopley, 19, was kicked to death by up to eight Asian men in Oldham in February 2003. His watch and chain were stolen and he died in hospital. Six men were convicted of violent disorder and theft offences but no one has been convicted of his murder.

Kriss Donald, 15, was abducted in Glasgow in March 2004, stabbed 13 times, doused in petrol and set alight. Daanish Zahid was found guilty of his abduction and murder in November last year. Three other defendants, who were returned to the UK from Pakistan, have been charged and await trial. It was alleged that Stathclyde Police had shelved an operation against Asian gang crime for fear of being perceived as racist.

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