Police are using hate laws wrongly 90 per cent of the time, the shadow home secretary has claimed.
As reported by the Telegraph, Chris Philp, who was policing minister in the last Government, said police should only be recording non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) “extremely rarely” where there was a “real risk of imminent criminality.” The report continues:
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Philip said: “If somebody, for example, appears to be about to threaten violence, or they’re expressing views that are exceptionally either racist or misogynistic, that might suggest that that could lead very imminently to a crime being committed, then I think we would want the police to keep an eye on that.
“But the majority, probably 90 per cent, of these non-crime hate incidents that are being looked at don’t meet that [threshold].
“The police should not be policing free speech. The police should not be policing thought. They should be concentrating on actual crime or behaviour that is just below the criminal threshold and might realistically and imminently lead to a crime. We want to focus on those crimes, not be policing thought.”
Mr Philp worked with Suella Braverman, the then-home secretary, last year to rewrite the guidance for police to ensure they only logged reports of NCHIs that were below the criminal threshold if there was a serious risk of harm amid concerns that they were threatening the right to freedom of expression.
Last week it emerged that children are among thousands of people being investigated by police for NCHIs.
Police forces recorded incidents against a nine-year-old who called a primary school classmate a “retard” and against two secondary school girls who said that another pupil smelt “like fish”.
The debate over hate crime laws has been further inflamed by a police investigation into Allison Pearson, a Telegraph journalist, over an unspecified tweet she posted a year ago.
Two officers from Essex Police visited her home at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday over what they described as “an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online.”
Mr Philp said he would have “gone further” in restricting police recording of such incidents had the election not been called in July.
Labour is seeking to reverse the Tories’ decision to downgrade the monitoring of NCHIs, specifically in relation to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, so they can be logged by police.
The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, is concerned that the crackdown has prevented police recording anti-Semitic and Islamophobic abuse that could escalate into serious violence.
Home Office sources say the intention is that the incidents would only be recorded where “proportionate and necessary” to protect Jewish and Muslim individuals and communities from abusive and hateful comments and behaviour while also preserving the “fundamental right” to free speech.
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