COPS must stop wasting time chasing “petty incidents” while real crimes go unsolved, free speech campaigners have urged.
They are demanding an overhaul of laws they say are stifling free speech and tying up overstretched forces.
It comes after Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson revealed she was questioned by officers over a year-old deleted tweet.
Pearson said police refused to give details about the post or the complaint against her, leading her to believe it was being treated as a non-crime hate incident.
Essex Police insisted this was “wholly inaccurate” and claimed body-worn video “entirely supports our position” that it was a criminal investigation.
But the force has now dropped the case amid growing backlash, as it emerged that even children as young as nine and working professionals have been investigated for so-called non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs).
Free Speech Union chief Toby Young told Never Mind The Ballots: “If there’s a risk that the police are going to show up at your door if you have a brain fart and say something stupid on social media, that’s going to have an extraordinarily chilling effect on free speech.
“And it’s also going to tie up the police (who will be) wasting time investigating these petty incidents.”
He revealed that over 250,000 non-crime hate incidents have been recorded since 2014, an average of 65 a day.
While political commentator Matthew Stadlen argued free speech has limits, he also insisted the law around non-crime hate incidents may need “tidying up.”
He added: “They shouldn’t be policing something that is distasteful if that doesn’t meet the bar of inciting, for example, religious hatred or racial hatred or indeed inciting violence.”
Chris Philp used a speech at a major policing conference on Wednesday to call for guidelines around the incidents to be rewritten.
The chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council Gavin Stephens told delegates on Tuesday the incidents must be investigated so that “precursors to violence” are not missed.
But speaking in Westminster, Mr Philp called on police forces to use “common sense”, arguing that changes would help “rebuild confidence” in policing and free up time to spend on fighting crime.
He said commitments made by police last year to “always follow all reasonable lines of inquiry must be delivered in practice”, adding: “If we can get those detection rates rising, confidence and trust in policing will invariably rise with them. That is what the public expects.”
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had previously promised to expand the system of recording non-crime hate incidents.
The Home Office is currently reviewing whether the current process “strikes the right balance”.
