Latest news with #nonCrimeHateIncidents
Daily Mail
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Police hit out at 'distraction of non-crime hate incidents' as officers forced to waste time investigating cases like a nine-year-old who called a fellow pupil a 'r*****' and two schoolgirls who said a child smelled 'like fish'
Britain's top police chiefs have warned that recording 'non-crime hate incidents' has become a 'distraction' which is damaging public trust. Sir Andy Marsh who leads the College of Policing, Greater Manchester chief Sir Stephen Watson and Merseyside Chief Constable Serena Kennedy have jointly called for an overhaul of the legislation saying it needs 'sorting out' because the issue can do 'immeasurable damage to trust and confidence' in policing. Launching a new leadership programme for policing, the trio spoke candidly about the need for future chief constables to communicate to the public how they are going to 'cut crime, catch criminals, keep people safe,' instead of wasting time on 'hurty words'. It comes after a series of controversial cases, including officers responding to incidents such as a nine-year-old pupil calling another a 'retard' and an occasion when two secondary schoolgirls said that a child smelled 'like fish'. More than 133,000 non-crime hate incidents have been recorded since they were introduced in 2014. But in November the Home Secretary announced a review following a request from the National Police Chiefs' Council and the College of Policing, which sets standards. Yesterday Sir Stephen said: 'It's easy to assume that we have some sort of weird fetish chasing stuff in social media, frankly we would rather really not if we can avoid it. 'In the context of things that are communicated online, people will accuse us sometimes of pursuing hurty words on the basis, somehow, it's an attack on free speech.' He added: 'I do think it has become a distraction. It has become something that the public trouble themselves over and particularly when they contrast our being seen to do things which they would argue are not matters for the police – and in certain examples they are right – contrast that with some of our failures to do some of the basics and that really annoys people.' Ms Kennedy added: 'Non-crime hate incidents are having a disproportionate impact on trust and confidence in policing and we absolutely need to sort that out in terms of what is the role of policing. 'We also need to be clear that our officers are not spending hours and hours and hours dealing with these jobs every day… But the reason we do need to sort it out is because of the disproportionate impact it has on policing every time we hear about one of these stories.' Sir Andy told the Mail: 'When policing gets it wrong, it causes immeasurable damage to trust and confidence.'
Telegraph
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Non-crime hate incidents should be scrapped, says ‘anti-woke' police chief
Non-crime hate incidents have gone too far and should be scrapped, the head of Greater Manchester Police has said. Sir Stephen Watson said the policy had been introduced with good intentions but was now past its 'sell-by date'. He stressed it was not the job of the police to involve themselves in people's arguments, and said the collection of non-crime hate incident data had fuelled the accusations of two-tier policing. In a speech to the Policy Exchange think tank, the Chief Constable, who was knighted in the King's recent birthday honours list, urged police forces to get back to basics in order to restore public trust and confidence. He also hit out at the impact human rights legislation was having on policing, saying it was not right that foreign criminals who 'fecklessly fathered children' could then avoid deportation by claiming the right to a family life. A non-crime hate incident is defined as an incident that falls short of being criminal but is perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards a person with a particular characteristic. Non-crime hate incidents were introduced in 2014 following recommendations made in the Macpherson Report into the racist killing of Stephen Lawrence. They are intended to provide forces with an intelligence picture of community tensions and help them understand where problems might suddenly arise, but have often resulted in police intervening in social media spats, with critics claiming they have a chilling effect on free speech. There are also concerns that they serve as a distraction for stretched police officers, who would be better off concentrating on serious crime. Asked if he believed whether the policy of collecting non-crime hate incident data should be scrapped, Sir Stephen said: 'Simple answer – yes, I think it should. I think the policy has passed its sell-by date.' He said it was the 'antithesis' of doing the basics and was at odds with the public perception of what was right. Sir Stephen conceded that the policy was introduced so police could have a better understanding of vulnerable people in their communities. But he added: 'What it morphed into was pretty much anybody with a protected characteristic who perceived themselves to be a victim of an incident, because of that, was automatically recorded. I think that's a mistake, and I think it went too far.' Sir Stephen was also critical of the impact some areas of the Human Rights Act was having on policing and confidence in the justice system. He said: 'The Human Rights Act is part of the panoply of the legislative machinery within which we have to operate. And candidly, you know, as a police officer it is less helpful for me to pontificate on what the legislative framework should look like. It's simply observing what it is and faithfully serving it in the public interest. 'However, there are manifestations of the Human Rights Act, which I think impacts policing and society more generally, I mean classically, foreign national offenders and the ability to deport people. 'It seems to me that is entirely unhelpful, particularly when people are simply claiming on the basis of having, very often, fecklessly fathered the number of children in our country, that they somehow shouldn't be deported because they have the right to a family life. Well, I suspect most of the public beg to differ.' Greater Manchester Police was in special measures when Sir Stephen was appointed four years ago, but he has turned the force around thanks to a traditional, no-nonsense approach to policing. He said getting the basics correct was vital if police forces were to deliver what the public expected. He added: 'It's picking up the phone, it's getting to people. It's turning up looking like you can pull the skin off a rice pudding. 'It's about being smart, it's about being professional, it's about being compassionate, it's about being diligent. 'It's about understanding the law, and it's about demonstrating to the public that you care and you're hungry to help because they don't ring us because they want to talk to us, they ring us because bad things are happening in their lives, things that are causing them and their families great consternation. 'It's about recording all crime faithfully, it is about investigating every reasonable line of enquiry for a single crime, and it's about locking people up. And it's about doing all of this with vim and vigour to demonstrate to the public that we're there to be relied upon.'
Times
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
Scrap non-crime hate incidents to protect free speech, Tories say
The Tories are pushing to scrap non-crime hate incidents to prevent frontline officers 'wasting time on this Orwellian nonsense' and prioritise fighting crime. Non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) were introduced after the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence to monitor situations that could escalate into more serious harm or show heightened community tensions. But increasingly they have been used to record petty arguments and trivial incidents. In November The Times revealed how a nine-year-old was subject to a NCHI after calling a classmate a 'retard'. It was among at least 13,200 NCHIs logged by 45 police forces in the year to June 2024, according to data obtained under Freedom of Information laws. An amendment to Labour's Crime and Policing Bill will seek to block police forces keeping
