The Home Secretary says consistent approach needed as she emphasises ‘immense importance’ of monitoring anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, reports the Telegraph. Here’s an extract:
Police should use “common sense” when recording non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), Yvette Cooper has said.
The Home Secretary said inspectors had found there was inconsistency and confusion among officers regarding the reporting of such cases.
However, speaking at an annual summit of police chiefs, she defended the principle of recording NCHIs, saying it was “immensely important” to monitor anti-Semitism and Islamophobia to help police identify where there was a risk of prejudice escalating into violence.
Her comments come following controversy over Essex Police’s decision to investigate a year-old tweet by Allison Pearson, a Telegraph journalist, who was visited at her home by officers on Remembrance Sunday to invite her to a voluntary interview.
Pearson’s tweet is being treated as an alleged criminal offence of inciting racial hatred, rather than a NCHI. However, her case has still raised concerns about how police deal with alleged hate incidents and crimes.
A report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in September found confusion over the rules meant officers were taking a risk-averse approach summed up as “if in doubt, record a crime”.
As a result, NCHIs were too often being logged for complaints that amounted to little more than people’s “hurt feelings”, it said.
Ms Cooper said: “You have to really have a common sense and consistent approach. And one of the other things I think that the inspectorate report shows is around the importance, for example, of monitoring things like anti-Semitism, which has increased over the last 12 months, and that is immensely important.”
Her comments came as it emerged that the force investigating Pearson has recorded more than 1,500 NCHIs in two years.
Essex Police logged 702 such incidents between June 2023 and June 2024, and 834 in the 12 months before that, freedom of information request responses revealed.
Earlier this year a shopkeeper “suspect” was recorded on the force’s hate incident database for refusing a person entry to his shop because they had a guide dog with them.
Another was logged when a complainant said they felt their bank was being difficult with them because of their “skin colour and height”.
Earlier, Dame Diana Johnson, the policing minister, said there needed to be “more training and clarity” about what was appropriate. “Being consistent and having a common sense approach to this is important,” she said.
Dame Diana told Times Radio: “This came out of the Macpherson inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence murder, recognising that joined-together intelligence can be useful for the police in dealing with what can develop into criminal offences.”
She added: “It’s also important to note that, for example around the rise in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia over recent times, that any hostility that might be focused towards individuals. That is a matter for the police to consider whether they need to record that. That’s one of the examples.”
The previous Tory government tightened the rules for recording NCHIs amid concerns that they were threatening free speech and diverting police from focusing on fighting crime.
Under the changes, officers are now only allowed to record an NCHI if the incident is “clearly motivated by intentional hostility” and where there is a “real risk of escalation causing significant harm or a criminal offence”.
Ms Cooper is looking to strengthen the guidance because of concerns that the restrictions have prevented police from recording anti-Semitic and Islamophobic abuse.
She is believed to be looking to reverse the Tories’ decision to downgrade the monitoring of NCHIs, specifically in relation to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, so that they can be logged by officers.
Worth reading in full.
