Police Scotland have been accused of “political bias” after refusing to record a non-crime hate incident (NCHI) against Humza Yousaf despite logging one against a Tory MSP.
The force has thrown out a deluge of complaints under the SNP’s new hate crime laws against the First Minister and Harry Potter author JK Rowling, with sources claiming more were logged about him than her.
A force spokesman said of both cases: “The circumstances have been assessed and will not be recorded as a non-crime hate incident.”
But Murdo Fraser, a Scottish Tory MSP, accused the police of double standards after they said neither Mr Yousaf nor Rowling would have an NCHI recorded against them.
“This decision means Police Scotland have not only breached their own policy on recording non-crime hate incidents, but now appear to be making it up as they go along,” he said.
Mr Fraser was reported by a member of the public in November 2023 after he shared a post on social media about the Scottish Government’s transgender policies.
He said that “choosing to identify as ‘non-binary’ is as valid as choosing to identify as a cat”.
As reported by the Telegraph, Police Scotland judged that the post was not a crime but it was still logged as a hate incident, without telling him.
After it was confirmed Mr Yousaf would not have an NCHI logged against him, the Tory accused the force of “making it up as they go along” and argued it had been “captured by the SNP policy agenda”.
Mr Fraser told BBC Radio Scotland: “In line with their policy, the police now have to record each and every one of these complaints as a non-crime hate incident, both against JK Rowling and against the First Minister Humza Yousaf.
“Either the police are going to treat an opposition politician in Scotland like myself differently from the way they treat the SNP First Minister, which would be an absolute outrage, or the police in Scotland are going to say that Scotland’s First Minister is responsible for a hate incident.”
Mr Fraser went on to demand that Jo Farrell, the chief constable, contact him with an apology, his NCHI be ripped up and the force’s policy of recording them overhauled.
Let’s hope Ms Farrell complies with these demands.
With the FSU’s help, Mr Fraser is now threatening to take legal action against Police Scotland after the online post in which he criticised the Scottish government’s transgender policy was reported as a ‘hate crime’ by a trans activist, and then logged as a NCHI.
It is possible for NCHIs to be disclosed to employers.
Thousands of hate crime complaints have been lodged with Police Scotland since Mr Yousaf’s Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act was introduced on Monday.
The force has pledged to investigate every one.
As widely reported, Mr Fraser called in the FSU to back a legal challenge on the basis that Police Scotland has “adopted a cavalier and disrespectful attitude towards me and my rights to freedom of expression and privacy, and the right to be informed of false and damaging information held on police records”.
In his letter to Police Scotland, Mr Fraser requests that the force make changes to its operational guidance so that it conforms with UK law and international human rights law, and that it permanently delete its record of the ‘hate incident’ relating to him. The force has until 5th April to respond, or we will help Mr Fraser seek a judicial review and/or initiate a civil claim.
When Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf was asked about Mr Fraser’s ordeal, he seemed entirely unperturbed about the extent to which NCHIs are contributing towards the chilling of free speech north of the border. “It’s important they are recorded,” he told STV News, “because what it does is it gives police an idea of where there might be spikes in hatred.”
But as Mr Fraser’s case demonstrates, the defining factor in the case of an NCHI is only ever the complainant’s perception of what happened, and whether they personally felt offended. You only have to glance at the FSU’s case files to see that what activists ‘perceive’ as ‘hateful’ is often just the expression of perfectly lawful views that they happen to disagree with for purely ideological reasons.
Now the Act has been activated, the FSU expects to see tens of thousands of these NCHIs being recorded against Scots who, like Murdo, dissent from fashionable orthodoxy.
That might sound far-fetched, but the country’s national police force has made clear that its officers will investigate every single complaint made under the new law, and even if an incident doesn’t meet the criminality threshold (i.e., that the legal fiction of the ‘reasonable person’ would consider the perpetrator’s speech to be threatening or abusive), it will nevertheless still be logged as an NCHI. Why? Because the defining factor there is only ever the complainant’s perception of what happened, even when there isn’t a shred of evidence to support the claim that the accused was motivated by hostility towards one or more protected characteristic.
As if to aid in the weaponisation of this investigatory process by activists, Police Scotland has even created 411 ‘third party reporting centres’ around the country where ‘hate crimes’ can be reported anonymously.
This nascent culture of snitching on one’s fellow citizens risks having a detrimental effect on people’s careers – for instance, an NCHI can show up on an enhanced criminal record check and may prevent you getting a job as a teacher or a carer, or being allowed to work for charities.
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