Non-crime hate incidents to be scrapped
Police to use ‘common sense’ instead of sticking with scheme widely criticised for undermining freedom of speech
Non-crime hate incidents are to be scrapped under plans that police chiefs will present to the Home Secretary next month.
Police leaders have decided that NCHIs are no longer “fit for purpose” after warnings that recording them undermines freedom of speech and diverts officers away from fighting crime.
Under the plans, NCHIs will be replaced with a new “common sense” system, where only a fraction of such incidents will be recorded under the most serious category of anti-social behaviour.
An NCHI falls short of being criminal but is perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards a person with a particular characteristic. They stay on police records indefinitely and can come up in background checks.
The move to scrap them follows high-profile cases such as that of Graham Linehan, the Father Ted co-creator, whose arrest for a series of posts on X was criticised by Donald Trump’s administration as a “departure from democracy”.
Incidents will no longer be recorded on crime databases
The plans will be published next month by the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and are expected to be backed by Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary.
Lord Herbert, the chairman of the College of Policing, told The Telegraph: “NCHIs will go as a concept. That system will be scrapped and replaced with a completely different system.
“There will be no recording of anything like it on crime databases. Instead, only the most serious category of what will be treated as anti-social behaviour will be recorded. It’s a sea change.”
Their exclusion from crime databases means any incidents will no longer have to be declared as part of checks in job applications.
Lord Herbert, a former Conservative policing minister, said controversial arrests or investigations such as those of Mr Linehan and Allison Pearson, a Telegraph columnist, would not occur under the new system.
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Under the plans, police forces will be instructed not to log “hate” incidents on crime databases and instead treat them only as “intelligence” reports.
Officers get ‘common sense’ checklist
All officers will be issued with a “common sense” checklist to go through before they take any action, to prevent police from intervening in spats over tweets or offensive comments.
Lord Herbert said the checklist aimed to ensure officers’ approach was “sensible” and targeted serious anti-social behaviour that was causing genuine harm or risk within communities, such as anti-Semitism. He said some monitoring was needed “to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater”.
The changes reflect the concerns of Ms Mahmood, who told police chiefs last month that officers should be policing the streets, not “perfectly legal language in any individual’s tweets”.
The Telegraph: continue reading
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