The British Chinese and the people in East Asian communities in the United Kingdom, who have been victims of racism and hate crime, have been urged to contact police about any such incidents as police figures show an increase in offenses against Chinese people.

Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, there have been reports of Chinese people being verbally and physically abused.

According to the police, hate crimes against the Chinese community have increased sharply, with the number of offenses reported in the first three months of 2020 nearly three times as high as the same period in 2018 and 2019.

Between January and March, 267 incidents of hate crime were reported across the UK, compared with 375 in 2019 and 360 in 2018.

The figures were published after Sky News sent a Freedom of Information request to the UK's 45 territorial police forces and British Transport Police.

David Tse, an actor and director who moved from Hong Kong to the UK as a child, said he has faced racism in the past but the level of hate crime since the pandemic has been "horrifying".

During a jog near his home in London, he was racially abused on the streets when a woman swore at him and then shouted at him to go back to China.

"I didn't expect it," Tse said. "I was just doing my daily exercise and it's those kinds of comments that take me back to my childhood."

Tse described the situation as "very emotional" and "very hurtful". He said there have been incidents where Chinese people have had their car tyres slashed and racist graffiti sprawled outside Chinese takeaways.

Tan Pek-san from London has also encountered a number of racist incidents. She said the violence and attacks have been "alarming" and some members of the British Chinese and East Asian community are worried when they leave the house, with fear of potential verbal or physical abuse.

She said it's affecting people such as the elderly outside their homes, children in playgrounds and those at places of work, and urged anyone who has been a victim of hate crime to come forward and report to the police or local councils.

"The police said to us: 'We can only police what we know', so reporting hate and hate crime, whether it's perceived, whether it's actual, verbal, physical, so that you can give them the statistics of what is happening, where it is happening so that they can appropriately apply the resources needed to deal with that," Tan said.

Tan and Tse are part of a COVID-19 anti-racism group, a nonpolitical and not-for-profit group, trying to tackle the problem.

If the community ignores racism and hate crime, and the police are not made aware of what is happening, then they will not be able to stamp down on this, Tan stressed.

She urged the UK Chinese community to use the resources that are available to them, such as community centers and councils, to report incidents.

The Metropolitan Police Service has released videos in various languages such as Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese, explaining what is hate crime and what people can do to report it.

And Protection Approaches, a charity working to end all forms of identity-based violence, has been running webinars during the pandemic for Chinese students and community looking into areas such as understanding hate crime, the impact on victims, witnesses, and communities, and how to support victims.

Deputy chief constable Mark Hamilton, the national policing lead for hate crime, said that no one is responsible for the outbreak and everyone has a right to be protected from targeted abuse.

He told Sky News: "We know that some forces have unfortunately had reports about a small number of offenders who have committed hate crimes against those from Chinese and Southeast Asian communities and linked to the COVID-19 outbreak."

"The police, prosecutors and the courts have all made it clear that they will take such crimes very seriously," he said.