Policing Minister orders Chief Constables to stop recording non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs)

During an appearance at the Oxford University Conservative Association this month, Policing Minister Chris Philp was asked whether he’d give a personal commitment to enforce?Miller v College of Policing?(2021), the landmark legal case that ruled that the then current College of Policing (CoP) guidelines on the recording of NCHIs were unlawful and should be replaced. The minister duly obliged, explaining that he’d recently met with the CEO of the CoP, Chief Constable Andy Marsh, and was in the process of arranging to meet all Chief Constables to tell them to stop recording NCHIs. If they didn’t listen, he added, then he would be prepared to use next year’s Police Reform Bill to force them to do so.

That’s encouraging news. NCHIs are/were a threat to free speech in this country. The FSU knows that better than most — over the last two-and-a-half years we’ve supported plenty of people who’ve fallen foul of this sinister form of thought policing. Take FSU member Kevin Mills, for instance. Two years ago, Kevin was handed a NCHI by the police after refusing to work with a customer who he feared wouldn’t pay the bill. The FSU?intervened?and Kent Police deleted his record earlier this year.

So how did we get here? Back in 2014, the CoP’s original guidelines defined NCHIs as incidents perceived by the victim or any bystanders to be motivated by hostility or prejudice to the victim based on a ‘protected’ characteristic (e.g., the colour of their skin). According to the guidance, NCHIs could be reported by the victim or by any other person who witnessed the incident and the police would then have to investigate them, irrespective of whether there was any objective evidence to identify the hate element. If the police concluded no crime had been committed, the NCHI would then be recorded against the accused’s name and could show up if a prospective employer carried out an enhanced criminal records check. Astonishingly, an average of 30,000 NCHIs have been recorded every year since then.

The FSU worked with Lord Moylan and other peers earlier this year to secure an?amendment?to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Act 2022 that gave the Home Secretary the option of placing the recording of NCHIs and the retention of the data on a statutory footing, governed by a Code of Practice approved by Parliament instead of the say-so of an unelected quango. The Home Secretary has yet to avail herself of this option, but the fact she has it in her back pocket undoubtedly helped give the Policing Minister the confidence to tell chief constables to stop recording NCHIs.

The next step, after we’ve reined in this practice, is to start getting the NCHIs already recorded against people’s names removed. If you want to know how to find out if you have one against your record, or how you might go about getting one deleted, the FSU has produced a short FAQ on NCHIs which you can access?here.

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