Case Explained: Met Police to scrap non-crime hate incident investigations in five months – London Business News – Legal Perspective

The Metropolitan Police has announced that it will cease investigating non-crime hate incidents, with the new policy set to take effect in five months.

Currently, police are required to investigate acts motivated by hostility toward characteristics such as race, religion, disability, or gender, even if these acts do not constitute criminal offences.

The Government stated that unclear guidance had previously led officers to respond to insults and routine arguments, resulting in criticism for overreach.

Last year, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that it would stop pursuing such incidents after halting an investigation into social media posts related to transgender issues made by Graham Linehan, the creator of *Father Ted*.

Under the new rules:

These reforms follow a review conducted by the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which aimed to provide a clearer definition of incidents that warrant police involvement.

Officials hope that these changes will reduce unnecessary investigations and allow for better resource allocation.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “Under these reforms, forces will no longer be policing perfectly legal tweets.

“Instead, they will be doing what they do best: patrolling our streets, catching criminals, and keeping communities safe.”

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “This is simply a rebrand of non-crime hate incidents with a more restrictive triage process.

“Reports are still logged, personal data still recorded, and disclosure rules are unchanged. Officers and staff will still be tied up monitoring incidents that do not meet the criminal threshold, at a cost in time and resources.

People want the police focused on catching criminals and keeping streets safe. Conservatives have been consistently clear the police should get back to basics and non-crime hate incidents should be scrapped to free up police time.

Assistant Chief Constable Tom Harding, director at the College of Policing, said: “Non-crime hate incidents are being replaced with a system that better serves both the public and modern-day policing.

“We have clearly established the current approach does not meet the expectations of either.

“Today we are setting out a fundamentally different way of handling reports so that officers can focus efforts on their core duties of preventing crime and protecting communities, while making clear that lawful free speech is not a police matter.

“Recording of non-crime hate incidents represents a very small proportion of overall police demand and while well intentioned, there has been a disproportionate use of the process which has eroded public trust.”