More than 13,200 hate incidents have been logged by UK police forces in the past year, including against schoolchildren, vicars and doctors, reports the Times.
Police recorded a non-crime hate incident against a “suspect” for refusing to shake a person’s hand in a row over gender identity.
Officers in Britain are logging hate incidents against people with gender-critical views — who believe sex is immutable — despite guidance warning that their opinions are legally held.
In Warwickshire, a suspect was recorded by the force for refusing to shake a person’s hand, which the victim “perceived to be hate related due to gender identity”. Warwickshire police maintained that the report was recorded correctly as a non-crime hate incident.
In Cambridgeshire a non-crime hate incident (NCHI) was put on its police database after a victim reported that stickers and posters belonging to “the Terf movement” had been put up.
Terf, meaning trans exclusionary radical feminist, is a slur used to describe those with gender-critical beliefs. Cambridgeshire constabulary said that it did its “utmost” to follow national guidance and that no suspect details were recorded.
It also emerged that transgender police officers have been permitted to strip-search women under guidance issued by the British Transport Police.
The guidance, seen by The Telegraph, allows male staff identifying as female to intimately search women so long as they have a gender recognition certificate.
Earlier this month, The Times reported that more than 13,200 hate incidents had been logged by UK police forces in the past year, including against schoolchildren, vicars and doctors. Non-crime hate incidents were introduced after the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence to monitor situations which could escalate into more serious harm or show heightened community tensions.
They cover protected characteristics under hate crime laws in England and Wales and can show up on enhanced criminal record checks.
In 2021, Harry Miller, an ex-police officer, won a legal challenge at the Court of Appeal after Humberside police logged alleged transphobic tweets from him as NCHIs. He had posted tweets on X including: “I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don’t mis-species me.”
The Court of Appeal ruled that the College of Policing’s NCHI guidance was wrongly used and had a “chilling effect” on Miller’s freedom of speech.
A new NCHI code of conduct, introduced last year, in a section on freedom of speech, points out that the expression of gender-critical beliefs is “protected in law”. NCHIs are also supposed to be reserved for incidents “clearly motivated by intentional hostility” where there is a real risk of escalation “causing significant harm or a criminal offence”.
However, The Times found a hate incident logged against a man for “expressing his personal views on transgender and non-binary” people “causing upset to others” in Humberside. Humberside police said the force carefully assessed each individual case and strived to take a “common-sense and proportionate approach”.
In Norfolk, a hate incident was recorded after a woman complained that stickers had been put up on posts, gates and lampposts which said: “Transwomen are men.”
A NCHI was logged in Cumbria after a victim complained they had been misgendered and in Northumbria a caller reported “incorrect pronouns” were being used when addressing them.
Northumbria police said the incident had been incorrectly classified as an NCHI.
It was revealed on Friday that an NCHI was recorded by City of London police after a customer said that his barber was “aggressive and rough” during his haircut because he spoke Russian. A force spokesman said: “The report was made online and later withdrawn.”
Another was logged in Cambridgeshire after a German woman became upset about being likened to a rottweiler. Cambridgeshire constabulary said it did not recognise the NCHI recorded in relation to the rottweiler comment.
Worth reading in full.
