Quote of the day 19th November 2024

“The non-crime hate incident is a legal abomination, attacking freedom of speech through the use of blacklisting and requiring almost nothing in the way of proof” 

This was the sub-title of The Times first leader “Wasting Police Time” on 15th November 2024.

Unfortunately, as the article proceeds to demonstrate, the dangers associated with this are far more serious than just wasting police time.

The article continues:

“The non-crime hate incident (CHHI) which ahs taken root in the UK in the last decade, is the invasive plant species of the justice system: it grows from very shallow legal soil, spreads fast across formerly well-marked boundaries and appears remarkably difficult to control.

The concept first arose from College of Policing Guidelines in 201 and has had a complicated and frequently unsettling trajectory ever since. Put as simply as possible, it places police under an obligation to record an incident, if the individual who reports it believes it was motivated by hostility towards a person or group with a particular characteristic such as race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity.

In addition, an NCHI can be reported by a third party who was not the target of the alleged hatred, but who nonetheless witnessed it.

Confused? The public certainly are. So, it appears, are the police. 

As a Times investigation reveals, many recent NCHIs recorded by police forces involve expressions which might range from valid opinion to silly or offensive, but should never fall under the remit of any sane police force at all.” 

I did not agree with everything Suella Braverman did at Home Secretary, but she was absolutely right in June 2023 to put in place a code of conduct which included a higher threshold for NCHIs under which personal data could only be recorded in relation to such an alleged incident if it was “clearly motivated by intentional hostility” and risked causing significant harm or a criminal offence.

She said at the time that forces should record these incidents only "when it is absolutely necessary and proportionate and not simply because someone is offended".

Quite.

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