A West Midlands Police officer said the protests did not constitute a hate crime despite coming "very close".

[Fairenuff]

BBC news

I think the Police need to make clear what a hate crime actually is and apply the law consistently. What are people allowed to speak about and protest?

The lack of clear definitions from government, lawmakers and law enforcers is failing to uphold rights and freedoms which we the people need in order to coexist in peace. At the moment it just seems that we are all vulnerable.

Well, Sara Thornton's comparison of police work with running libraries has just helped my regard for the police no end. I get the message about police work being hard, but really...Try working in a library on your own or just two of you with a horde of feral kids in trying to wreck the place with absolutely no authority to stop them or ability to trace them (or back up from the coppers for that matter). We're open to all and sundry at all hours and are rather more defenceless than retail or schools, let them take the comparison for once!

The concept of 'hate crimes' at all is weird to me. The motivation does not change the actual crime, and many crimes may be committed for hate reasons but never 'caught' that way?

Its always been baffling to me really, and i have a fair few 'protected characteristics' going for me, which seems to mean that if I was attacked for any of them, it would be treat as 'worse'

The concept of hate crime as a special class of crime was always idiotic and now it is being abused to privilege whichever group is fashionable at the time.

It's close because they were potentially being slanderous/libellous or inciting others to violence rather than committing physical crime themselves. Inciting other to commit a hate crime is a hate crime but they stopped shy of that