Met Police will no longer investigate Non Crime Hate Incidents

I can remember the gasps in our law class at college when the tutor stood up and announced 'I can stand in the park on a box and say 'I hate black people, I do not like them at all' and that is not a crime unless I invite others to violence against them'.

He was a great teacher.

Horrendous. What on earth is going on

So who gets to decide which position is valid?

One persons hate speech is another persons free speech.

Christ.

It cost Sarah Phillimore £50,000 in legal fees to get a NCHI removed from her records.

they record a NCHI against your name and you have absolutely no idea they have done this and no opportunity to defend yourself, you just never get another job that requires an enhanced DBS check

When you get a DBS check the certificate is sent to you. As soon as you receive your DBS certificate you will see if there are any NCHI recorded. Any incorrect details can be appealed.

In liberal democracies except in Scotland, where our Hate Crime Bill includes chat inside the house between family members, no criteria, no threshold.

You apply for a new job with an enhanced DBS which shows the NCHI and as a consequence you don't get the job. You might not know why so may still be unaware that there is a NCHI recorded.

You will be aware that a NCHI has been recorded as you receive the physical DBS certificate where it is detailed. A prospective employer has to request sight of your DBS certificate to get that information.

Is it really the main point though?

If I am having a conversation with my neighbour Bob about the evils of misgenation, and Rory across the fence overhears and thinks I am a nasty racist, and reports it, and they record it next to my name - I don't think that makes it ok, the main issue is still there which is the authorities recording information about my non-criminal activities, because they don't like my opinions.

That's the real issue, it is a direct attack of freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, the right to speak about our beliefs and political opinions, and the communicate with others about them.

These are foundational concepts in liberal democracies.

This has been my experience with working with tips like this in other contexts. When you are trying to develop a larger picture, you can collect all kinds of things that might not turn out to be relevant or even accurate, but they also potentially round out a picture and can end up being important.

However, when you are talking about a police force, collecting intelligence on citizens, it seems to me that all kinds of questions are raised about citizens rights to privacy with this approach. even before the possibility of it affecting DBS checks and such. I know this kind of thing might be done when looking at criminal networks and be really important to policing them, but just general citizens? I would have thought some real justification was required for keeping information about people like this.

So i'm at work
Someone says 'oh shes pissing me off the 'black b*tch' or the 'p- muslim or 'the Jewish -'
To another colleague, about me, and i hear it
I cannot report it to the police????

What people say is not violence, it's words. Can we please, please make resilience cool again? If somebody says something extremely inappropriate in a work situation talk to HR. The police should not get a sniff, it should not be on their radar.

If you are making disparaging comments about fellow workers I guess people will discover you are a dick. Why on earth would it be a case for the police? "Being a dick" is not something they have any control over.

Meanwhile a man wanking in our shopping hall got off Scot free with case closed due to no witnesses. When there were plenty of witnesses. But those witnesses were then classed as victims. So not witnesses. But Bridget’s posted a tweet! Record that as hate incident without due course. Make it make sense!

It comes to something when the police refusing to investigate actually makes people think the outcome will be fairer than if they did.

And even they themselves view it as a positive.

That's a terrible indictment.

Either investigate them properly and do your job, dismissing 90% of them, so pricks will stop weaponising it.

Or if you can't do that, get rid of the whole concept.

You CAN do whatever you like. Can you explain why you WOULD report it to the police rather than HR, and what specifically you would expect the police to do about it?

You report it to HR on the grounds that it's gross misconduct. That's not to say it's a crime.

Try this scenario.

You walk past the work kitchen and hear a colleague say 'I've always preferred white to black.'

You are offended by this racist remark. You go to the police and report your colleague for saying something offensive.

The police listen to your report, make no additional enquiries and record a non-crime hate incident.

Your colleague is not contacted by the police to say it is on their file, or to explain their side. They have no idea any of this has happened until they apply for a DBS check and discover they have been officially marked as a racist.

The conversation you overheard was not racist. It was about how they take their coffee.

Exactly. There was no actual criteria for anything to be "hate" in a NCHI, only someone saying that they perceived it as that.

An extreme example but eg if I objected to my neighbour walking across my driveway I might say I perceive he is doing that because he has hatred for my sexual orientation. No crime needed, no actual sexual orientation declared, just that I felt he was doing that for those reasons. And actually no evidence needed that he did walk across my driveway .
The police may not choose to record or investigate it but if there are criteria for doing so for other "events that aren't crimes" then they need to be made clear.

It's awful that racist pricks exist but NCHIs did not address this in any way. If I had my way, nobody would reach any belief without full and forensic research into the the facts, but it's probably good that I'm not in a position to enact this as law! (I'm being slightly flippant here)...

Of course you can report it to the police.

You can also report it to the police even if they didn't actually say it, and your colleague may have a NCHI recorded against them, which they are entirely unaware of, and you have just silently wrecked their career and they'll be none the wiser. There will never be any requirement for evidence, none of the burden of proof that applies in actual criminal cases, because the police won't investigate it. They'll just record it.

Meanwhile, other people are out there committing actual crimes with impunity, serious crimes like rape and burglary, and the police can't be arsed to investigate those either, so not only do they get away with it, they don't even get the merest smudge of a black mark on their DBS certificate.

You're may not trying to be dense but you're clearly being a troll. You know darn well it is impossible to police people's feelings.

So you come here and ask all these troll-y dense questions but let me ask you, what do YOU think should happen to someone who does nothing other than calling a black footballer the n word? They should be put in jail? For how long? They should be fined? How much?

Where I live, some black people call each other the n word as a term of endearment. Go to any rap concert - are you going to arrest everyone who uses the n word there bc they're being racist? What about when a black rapper releases songs that use the n word towards another black person in a mean way, or calls women b-words in their songs? Shouldn't they all be arrested too?

And what about calling women "terfs? Why can't I report someone chanting" kill all terfs" as a hate crime against women? Or using cishet in a derogatory way, shouldn't that person be reported to the police for discriminating against someone's sexual orientation and gender identity? Or people who chant "from the river to the sea" for antisemitism?

So Mr. High and mighty super-superior moral high ground. Pray enlighten us, what's your big concern about all those scenerios?? I'm assuming you believe the same law that would put someone in jail for calling a black footballer the n word should be applied to anyone being derogatory towards someone else based on their culture or characteristics, right? I mean, otherwise we'd be DISCRIMINATING about who gets to say what, or be derogatory to who, or in what specific context - and discrimination is horrible right? Bc you couldn't possibly believe that certain people deserve exceptions if they come from a certain background or skin color bc then wouldn't that make you 😲.

Again you’re focusing on thresholds of criminality.

That’s not the issue.

Police are recording these black marks against people when no crime has occurred, and the police are fully aware that the ‘incidents’ do not meet the criminal threshold.

If the police thought a crime had been committed, they would investigate them as a crime. You would be brought in for questioning. Be able to offer your side of the story.
Enter a plea if you’re charged. Have legal representation.

These are not being investigated as a crime, and the police are aware from the offset that they are not criminal, and are (were?) investigating non-crime hate incidents.

People are not made aware of them, and have no recourse to appeal them.

I agree they ae sinister and a total infringement on Civil Liberties, or rather Civil Liberties and freedom of speech for some but not others.

Appalling misuse of State powers against citizens.

I bet they are relieved.

No. I'm saying it SHOULD be. Sorry just reread my post. I wasn't very clear

So i'm at work

Someone says 'oh shes pissing me off the 'black b*tch' or the 'p- muslim or 'the Jewish -'

To another colleague, about me, and i hear it

I cannot report it to the police????