The Home Secretary Suella Braverman will announce this morning that police will be barred from recording non-crime hate incidents just because someone is offended.
Braverman has endorsed new guidance requiring officers to prioritise freedom of speech over offensive language that upsets people.
According to The Telegraph:
Officers will be restricted to recording only incidents that are motivated by intentional hostility and pose a real risk of escalating into significant harm.
It aims to reduce the number of non-crime hate incidents which have seen 120,000 people recorded in the past five years. They include “trivial” cases such as a Bedfordshire man who ended up with a police file for whistling the theme tune to Bob the Builder at his neighbour, who perceived racial hatred.
The new guidance drawn up by the College of Policing follows the case of Harry Miller, a retired policeman who won a free-speech battle after being visited by his local force for tweeting about transgender rights. The Court of Appeal ruled the police action had breached his human rights.
Mrs Braverman said: “I have been deeply concerned about reports of the police wrongly getting involved in lawful debate in this country. We have been clear that in recording so-called non-crime hate incidents, officers must always have freedom of expression at the forefront of their minds.
“The new code will ensure the police are prioritising their efforts where it’s really needed and focussing on tackling serious crimes such as burglary, violent offences, rape and other sexual offences.”
In the 40-page guidance, police are told to use their “common sense” and “judgement” so they only record non-crime hate incidents where it is “proportionate” and “necessary” to do so and in a way that does not restrict freedom of expression.
Officers are advised to look for a common-sense reason not to record an incident if the complaint is trivial, irrational or malicious.
The guidance cited the case of an individual who tweeted their belief that a person’s biological sex is more important than self-identified gender, and should be prioritised when decisions are made about access to single-sex spaces.
In handling a police complaint about it, officers are told this would not be recorded as a non-crime hate incident because the “views are an example of a person exercising their freedom of expression to outline a personally-held belief”.
“A reasonable person would accept the discussion as a contribution to a lawful debate, even if they found it offensive or disagreed with it,” said the guidance.
