According to an analysis by the Daily Telegraph, the College Of Policing (CoP) are subverting recent changes to Hate Crime recording policy. It remains to be seen whether they will also follow the latest promises to make it mandatory to record the ethnicity of those investigated in ethnically-based rape gangs.*

Following the release of a new Draft Code of Practice on Non-Hate Crime Incidents (NCHI) by the Home Office, the College of Policing which oversees policing practice has updated its own guidelines for police forces. 

The Home Office listed 11 situations in which recording such incidents should be considered and in 63% of these cases explicitly stated that they should not be recorded as being hateful. 

The CoP were thereafter required to update their own advice to the various regional police forces. They selected 8 separate scenarios, at odds with the Home Office's list and in 88% of cases suggested that recording incidents as hate crimes were permissible. Seven of these areas were redrafts from their guidelines that had existed previously but that had been redrafted to take account of a High Court defeat. 

These recent amendments continue to conflict with the decision of the High Court in 2022. Harry Miller of Fair Cop took Humberside Police to court after they had visited him at his workplace over tweets that they'd listed as a transphobic hate incident. 

120,000 Haters in The Police Database

Over 120,000 British citizens have these NCHIs on their file, which can be accessed by anyone entitled to request an Enhanced DBS check for employment or promotion. They can act as a barrier in sensitive roles such as joining public service institutions, in care work, or working with children, such as adoption, or education. Those who are in those roles already will encounter a strong chilling effect on their behaviour, their associations, and stated opinions.

Blair's Shadow 

They mainly centre around the "protected characteristics" drafted by Harriet Harman and enshrined in British law by Gordon Brown under a manifesto commitment made by Tony Blair in the 2005 Labour manifesto. 

Common Sense?

The Home Office's new standards require police to use their "common sense" to only record such incidents that are motivated by 'intentional hostility' which may 'escalate into significant harm'. An objective observer might rightly say this allows the Home Office to pretend it's doing something while the highly politicised senior ranks of the police can carry on as normal. Common sense is not a commodity in good supply within our regional forces. 

These non-crime incidents are bundled into overall hate crime statistics which are then broadcast by media entities and create a cultural aversion to being 'controversial' on particular topics. 

National Police Entities 

More generally, these national police organisations, may appear to some, to be the repository for those who have hit a bump in the road or who have a shadow over their career.

The College of Policing is a quango brought in by Theresa May to be the police's professional body. 

The current head of the CoP is 'Andy' Marsh. Mr Marsh retired from Avon and Somerset Police in July 2021 almost exactly one year after his force allowed the Edward Colston statue to be toppled by a far-Left mob in Bristol. His direct report who made the lawless decision was 'Andy' Bennett, who was the force's 'lead for hate crime' and was soon honoured by being recognised in the Queen's Honours List as QPM. Mr Marsh himself had earlier told 'Black Lives Matter' protesters he would not arrest them if they wanted to protest, while the rest of us were under legal threat, barricaded in our houses over Coronavirus regulations. He also tried to implicate right-wing people for the egregious rioting of others on that day. 

This has echoes for this writer of events at the National Police Chief's Council, a 'national coordination body' for the police. 

Sara Thornton was made the first head of this body. She was moved here after her resignation was accepted as Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police shortly before the release of a damning report on her force, outlining the lack of police action on grooming gangs that had been operating across her region. There isn't any suggestion that her successor, Martin Hewett, previously her deputy has any such skeletons in his own closet. Now 'Dame' Sara Thornton has been moved on to become the 'Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner' where we have not heard too much publicly from her or her commission. In a similar way, Sara Kahn was moved from being the Commissioner for Countering Extremism to being the 'Independent Adviser for Social Cohesion and Resilience', now under Gove's Levelling Up fiefdom. Her Extremism Commission colleague Mark Rowley, famous for his 'Rowleyism' has received something of an upgrade, becoming the current head of the Metropolitan Police. 

Have these national organisations and the police forces under them become a law unto themselves? You reader, can decide upon this for yourselves. 

* Priti 'PR' Patel made several statements to the press, as was her tendency, on making the recording of ethnicity data mandatory, yet it still is not being done in various police forces later subject to FoIs. Now Sunak, in slippery-worded statements given to the press, has announced "The Prime Minister will order police forces to improve the recording and analysis of ethnicity data." Later after the media blitz, there was no clarification of this on the government website, giving little cause for confidence. 

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