THE vast majority of the people of Worcester have made it clear over the past few years that racist behaviour has no place in our society.

And that message has been conveyed again today after the court case involving divorced mother-of-five Stephanie Davis.

She has been put on probation for two years after admitting she racially abused Bashir Multani and his family - a sentence welcomed today by Andrew Lee, the deputy director of Worcester Racial Equality Council.

Mr Lee hopes the punishment will deter others from subjecting minorities to racial abuse.

The pessimists might fear that stronger sentences will be needed before the message that racism will not be tolerated is clearly conveyed to all sections of society.

But, clearly, the more cases of racial harassment which come before the courts, the greater the chance of its victims being prepared to come forward, rather than suffering in silence.

As we reported earlier this summer, the police have been busy building bridges with ethnic minorities and, as a result, more incidents of race-hate crime are being reported.

The facts speak for themselves. The number of racially-aggravated offences reported to West Mercia Police increased from six in 1998-99 to 150 in the past year.

That is strong evidence that members of our minority communities are increasingly prepared to trust the justice system to deal with their complaints.

However much the racists may not like it, we live in a society in which every culture deserves to be understood.

From the first day a child goes to school, we should not only teach tolerance of racial differences, we should encourage children to grow up celebrating expanding horizons. By the time they reach adulthood, racism should be buried in the past.