New Home Office Guidance to Stop Police From Recording Non-Crime Hate Incidents ‘Because Someone Is Offended’

British Home Secretary Suella Braverman leaves Downing Street following the first cabinet meeting after Liz Truss took office as the new prime minister, in London, on Sept. 7, 2022. Carl Court/Getty Images

Home Secretary Suella Braverman is to order police to only record non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) when absolutely necessary, which campaigners say is a major win for free speech.

Braverman said the draft guidelines, which will go before Parliament on Monday, will prevent police “wrongly getting involved in lawful debate.”

British police have been encouraging the public to report NCHIs, described as “any non-crime incident which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice,” on official hate crime sites.

But critics have called NCHIs an “Orwellian device“ that encourage conduct that violates freedom of expression.

According to the new guidelines, police will only record non-crime hate incidents when it is “absolutely necessary and proportionate” and not “simply because someone is offended,” the Home Office said in a release.

Braverman said personal data will only be recorded for incidents “motivated by intentional hostility” and where there is a “real risk of significant harm.”

Braverman said officers must have freedom of expression “at the forefront of their minds.”

“I have been deeply concerned about reports of the police wrongly getting involved in lawful debate in this country,” she said.

“We have been clear that, in recording so called non-crime hate incidents, officers must always have freedom of expression at the forefront of their minds.

“The new code will ensure the police are prioritising their efforts where it’s really needed and focusing on tackling serious crimes such as burglary, violent offences, rape, and other sexual offences.”

Former police officer Harry Miller speaks to the media outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Dec. 20, 2021. Dominic Lipinski/PA

Harry Miller

Mentioned in the guidance is the case of former policeman Harry Miller.

Miller brought a judicial review against the professional body for the police in England and Wales, the College of Policing (CoP), and Humberside Police after an officer visited him at work to “check his thinking” over reposting a gender-critical limerick on Twitter.

Miller also set up Fair Cop in response to what it calls “Big Brother” overreach of various police forces and other authorities in England.

In 2021, a top court ruled that CoP’s guidance on recording NCHIs violated Miller’s freedom of expression as set out in Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

Miller told The Epoch Times that the Home Office stepping in was “the right thing to do.”

“Finally Suella Braverman has stood up and done her job. It’s not the role of the Home Secretary to interfere with the police but it is the role of the home secretary to pull the police into line when they are in contempt of the rule of law and the courts,” he said.

He added that “the CoP is 100 percent unfit for purpose.”

Miller previously told The Epoch Times that the justification for recording NCHIs is based on a theory of escalating hate as set out by American psychologist, Gordon Allport, in 1954. The Allport Scale has five stages: antilocution, avoidance, discrimination, physical attack, and extermination. Hate speech is included in the antilocution stage.

During Miller’s legal challenge, Police Superintendent Paul Giannasi, who is developing and delivering the England and Wales Hate Crime Policy, described Miller’s reposted limerick as a “staging post on a five-step journey” that leads to genocide.

Miller said he believed Braverman’s intervention was the start of a “great unravelling.”

“Because what we [Fair Cop] did, we put a hole beneath the waterline and what Suella has done has basically sunk the ship,” he said.

“We have a right to be offensive. It [the guidelines] says that we have a right to be gender critical, it removes police from recording school children, it’s an absolute overwhelming victory,” he added.

The rainbow flag on a police officer during Pride in London on July 6, 2019. Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images for Pride in London

‘Clear Threshold’

Crime, policing, and fire minister Chris Philp said the guidelines create a “clear threshold” that must be met for hate incidents to be recorded.

However, Labour shadow policing minister Sarah Jones said that the home secretary is “trying to pick fights” instead of “providing serious solutions.”

“We will wait to see the details of these guidelines, but it seems yet again the home secretary is trying to pick fights instead of providing serious solutions to the pressures on policing,” she said.

Iain Raphael, director of public safety and risk at the College of Policing, told The Epoch Times by email: “Police have a responsibility to protect the public and ensure everyone feels safe whilst also safeguarding freedom of speech. Finding a balance between these two interests is essential for policing in ensuring people are free to engage in lawful debate without police interference.”

Raphael said he welcomed “the new proposed Code of Practice for hate incidents and have supported the Home Office in its writing.”

“Our interim hate incident guidance was revised and issued as a temporary measure, reflecting the judgement of the Court of Appeal, to fill the gap until a new code of practice was released by the Home Office. The aim of this guidance was to support officers and staff in better understanding the law whilst ensuring the response to complaints from the public where an incident is said to be motivated by hostility or prejudice is proportionate,” he said.

“It’s important to stress that recording of non-crime hate incidents is not a penalty and is vital in allowing police to build intelligence around patterns of behaviour that could escalate and cause harm to people if not monitored appropriately,” he added.

PA Media contributed to this report.