By REBECCA CAMBER, CRIME AND SECURITY EDITOR Published: 00:00 BST, 10 September 2025 | Updated: 00:16 BST, 10 September 2025
Police should scrap the recording of non-crime hate incidents and ‘allow people to speak freely’ without fearing arrest, its watchdog said yesterday.His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Andy Cooke urged officers to ‘separate the offensive from the criminal’ and get back to dealing with crimes that really matter to people, rather than social media spats.Following the row over the arrest of Father Ted writer Graham Linehan, Sir Andy suggested it was ‘heavy handed’ for five armed officers to stop him at Heathrow Airport over comments made on X about trans issues.‘Was it a great public optic? No, it wasn't,’ he said.‘Lessons I'm sure will be learned in relation to it, but it does make policing's job harder when these things occur, because this becomes the focus of attention.’In an important intervention as the College of Policing reviews non-crime hate incidents (NCHI), Sir Andy said officers are placed in an ‘invidious position’ by the current legislation and that ‘discretion and common sense don't always win out’.Police in England and Wales have been required by law to record NCHI reports since June 2023 to gather intelligence on increasing tensions, with the aim of spotting any signs of future violence or unrest.But Sir Andy said the policy ‘attracts continued criticism of policing’ and ‘if high profile mistakes are made, they become the focus and detract from good policing.’ Andy Cooke QPM, His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary‘Police aren’t the thought police’, he said.‘I'm a firm believer that non-crime hate incidents are no longer required, and that intelligence can be gathered in a different way, which would cause less concern to the public and would make recording of such issues much easier for policing.‘I think we need to separate the offensive from the criminal. We need, at times, to allow people to speak openly without the fear that their opinion will put them on the wrong side of the law.‘Don't get me wrong, there's some exceptionally distasteful things that are said, there's some offensive things that are said.‘The job of the police is to deal with criminality across the board.‘That does mean dealing with some issues that occur online and some of the threats to life, other issues, the serious issues that are there.‘It can be a fine line, and that's one of the reasons why we need to look again at the policy and the legislation that sits around this because it places the police in an invidious position and, as we know, discretion and common sense don't always win out in these issues.’ Father Ted co-creator Graham LinehanSpeaking at the launch of the watchdog’s annual report on the state of policing in England and Wales, the former Merseyside Chief Constable urged forces to win back the public’s trust and confidence by ‘getting back to basics’, tackling issues like anti-social behaviour, shoplifting and phone theft.‘Policing does need to significantly improve that trust and confidence by getting the basics right, focusing on the issues that the public want, being more visible in communities and addressing some of the problems that people see on their doorsteps every day,’ he said.His annual report highlighted the need for police to secure sufficient funding to achieve Government targets to reduce knife crime, halve offences against women and girls and establish a new National Centre of PolicingSir Andy warned policing will be operating with ‘one hand behind its back’ without more cash, adding: ‘This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to actually start that reform that policing needs, and it will be a missed opportunity if it's not properly funded from the start.’
