What is the point of Non-Crime Hate Incidents?
Introduction
Following the high-profile arrest of comedy writer Graham Linehan for three tweets, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley called on the government to “change or clarify” the law in relation to online speech. According to media reports, the Commissioner will present proposals for reform to the Home Secretary within a matter of weeks, aimed at giving officers more discretion.
It is expected that the Commissioner’s proposals will also cover Non-Crime Hate Incidents (NCHIs). A source close to the Commissioner told The Telegraph:
‘Regulations that were understandably intended to improve policing and laws that were intended to protect the vulnerable, are now tying officers’ hands, removing appropriate professional discretion – which some call common sense – and risk losing public confidence.
The Met is working with wider policing to rapidly develop solid proposals for where reform is possible – either in policy and guidance or the law – which could be ready within weeks. For instance, one of the areas where Sir Mark has been very clear previously is the need to bring more common sense to how police record and handle non-crime hate incidents.’
Change law so we can stop policing tweets, demands Met chief The Telegraph 7 September 2025
The following week Sir Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said that NCHIs were “no longer required” and should stop being recorded by the police.
Available data on the use of NCHIs by UK police forces is patchy. Data accessed via Freedom of Information found that forces in England and Wales recorded around 14,000 NCHIs in the year to September 2024. Here in Scotland, Police Scotland currently hold details of over 7,000 incidents, dating back to 2014.
In the last few years, NCHIs have gained critical attention, principally in relation to concerns about freedom of speech. In 2021 the Interim College of Police CEO told the National Police Chief Council (NPCC) that there is ‘widespread concern the Hate Crime Operational Guidance has been weaponised’.
This is particularly evident in relation to reports against people expressing sex realist or ‘gender-critical’ views. In 2021, former police officer Harry Miller won a legal challenge at the Court of Appeal after Humberside Police logged tweets, including ‘I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don’t mis-species me’, as NCHIs.
Raising the threshold
Following successful legal action by Mr Miller against Humberside Police and the College of Policing,1 in June 2023 the previous UK Government introduced a NCHI Code of Practice (hereafter the Code), applicable in England and Wales only.2
Putting a strong emphasis on proportionality, th is raised the threshold for recording NCHIs, to require more than a complainant’s perception. The Code also set out standards for recording the personal data of any subject of an NCHI report (i.e. the person complained about).
‘Personal data may only be recorded where the recording authority deems that, alongside fulfilling the other criteria set out in this code, there is also a real risk of significant harm to individuals or groups with a particular characteristic(s) and/or a real risk that a future criminal offence may be committed against individuals or groups with a particular characteristic(s).’
Non-Crime Hate Incidents: Code of Practice on the Recording and Retention of Personal Data 2023: para. 25 (emphasis added).
Police Scotland belatedly introduced its own interim NCHI policy in May 2024. This was followed by a final ‘Responding to Hate’ Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in August 2024. Both the interim policy and SOP incorporated the same ‘real risk of significant harm’ recording provision, along with some other parts of the Code.
Under the Code and the Police Scotland SOP officers are required to inform people if their details are held. In England and Wales only, officers are required to advise people that they can contest the record and how to do this (Code of Practice, para. 64). There are also differences between the Code and Police Scotland SOP in respect of deleting older records, as discussed further below.
This blog considers some of the ongoing issues around NCHIs. The analysis highlights a lack of evaluation, data collection concerns, a lack of clarity over definitions and policies, and a lack of procedural safeguards in relation to historical records, particularly in Scotland. We conclude that in the absence of a robust evidence base, that the long-standing practice of badging some non-criminal activity as ‘hateful’ is hard to support.
1. What is the value of NCHIs?
NCHIs arose from recommendations in the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report 1999 which stated that the term ‘racist incident’ must be understood to include crimes and non-crimes, and that both ‘must be reported, recorded and investigated with equal commitment’.
In the decades that followed, a mushrooming hate crime agenda saw the ‘perception-based’ Macpherson principles extended to other characteristics. Setting out the definition of a hate incident as ‘any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice’ based on a person’s actual or perceived race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or transgender status, a 2009 Cross-Government Action Plan on hate crime explained:
‘… these definitions are distinct from the definitions in law… they are designed to be broader, recognising the perception-based recording principle.’
Police forces attach considerable value to NCHIs. In a set of broad-brush assertions, Police Scotland state that recording can:
- Protect people from harm.
- Prevent crime.
- Provide the police with a tool to build intelligence and monitor the potential for escalation by individuals or within communities.
- Assist in monitoring tensions within communities enabling appropriate police responses.
- Helps the police to build community confidence and to understand where to focus resources.
- The incident may be the first of a series of incidents where the first is not a crime – for example, harassment and stalking, where a course of conduct is required to be evidenced.
- Where an individual is subject to many low-level incidents that can affect the person’s quality of life and referrals can be made for police or other organisations to respond.
An Inspection into Activism and Impartiality in Policing by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) reported similar assertions from police forces in England and Wales:
In all forces, we heard that NCHIs provided valuable intelligence. We saw that forces used the intelligence effectively, to identify vulnerable people and individuals being victimised. This can also help identify people who, while not victims of crime, may need safeguarding or referral to support services.
The recording of NCHIs helps forces to identify, assess and respond to threats and risk, and to investigate when required. This could include “course of conduct” offences such as harassment.
Some forces also told us they use NCHIs as an indicator of any cumulative tensions in a community. NCHI reports allow monitoring of trends or individual patterns of behaviour. And they help to identify potential hotspots, which informs intelligence assessments. These assessments influence policing activities such as daily management meetings, patrol plans and crime reduction activities. Forces also share this NCHI intelligence with partner organisations, such as local authorities. This can raise awareness about the prevalence of hate incidents and promote community engagement and cohesion.
Inspection into Activism and Impartiality in Policing HMICFRS 2024: 112
2. Lack of evaluation
To what extent can these claims be supported? In July 2025 Police Scotland told us that it holds ‘no records of any evaluations or analyses on the effectiveness of Non-Crime Hate Incidents being carried out by Police Scotland’ (Freedom of Information response).
In July 2025 the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs Council announced a ‘Review of Non-Crime Hate Incidents’, due for completion in December 2025. Among its aims, the review will consider whether the current approach is ‘fit for purpose’. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evaluation since the introduction of NCHIs two decades ago.
3. Missing data
England and Wales
In England and Wales, data on NCHIs is limited. The HMICFRS report states that the ‘recording of hate-related incidents, and the ability to retrieve data, is a significant challenge in some forces’. Some forces could not provide the Inspectorate with the data requested. This meant that forces could not ‘effectively analyse hate incidents to get a thorough understanding of them’.
A report on NCHIs published by the think-tank Policy Exchange stated:
There is no single national data source for the recording of NCHIs by police forces and not all police forces publish the number of NCHIs they record – however the results of recent Freedom of Information requests show that 13,200 NCHIs were recorded in the 12 months to June 2024. It is not possible to determine what proportion of those NCHIs contain ‘personal data’ within them.
Non-Crime Hate Incidents Policy Exchange, 2024: 24
It states further, ‘There is currently limited, if any, evidence to demonstrate that the large-scale recording of NCHIs has enabled police officers to prevent the ‘escalation’ of situations into serious criminality’ (page 26).
Scotland
In Scotland, Police Scotland records NCHIs on its Interim Vulnerable Persons Database (iVPD). This has an inbuilt weeding and retention function, meaning that it is only possible to ascertain the number of records currently held.
Sometimes the data simply does not add up. The blog below shows a lack of clarity over data, definitions, a standard of reporting that we describe as substantially misleading, and what appears to be indifference or a lack of attention to the results.
The most recent Police Scotland Performance Report to the Scottish Police Authority states that officers recorded 912 NCHIs in 2023/24. It provides no further analysis or information on NCHIs specifically, or any indication as to its operational value.
A Freedom of Information response shows that as of 4 July 2025 Police Scotland held nearly 7,000 NCHI records, dating back to 2014. Most (around 80%) are recorded under the older perception-based policy in place until 31 March 2024. Police Scotland cannot say how many NCHIs it had weeded from its database, because it keeps no record of this.
Number of NCHIs retained on the Police Scotland iVPD system as of 4 July 2025, by year
Notes
2014 to 30 April 2024: Perception-based policy
1 May 2024 onward: Raised threshold policy
4. Lack of clarity
There is a lack of clarity as to what constitutes an NCHI, how to categorise reports made to the police, and what details are and/or should be recorded. This confusion is apparent in the HMICFRS reports, media reports, and in Scottish Police Authority Board meeting minutes.
England and Wales
In England and Wales, the Inspectorate found that some forces had difficulty in identifying NCHIs or differentiating between NCHIs and hate crimes. Similarly, some responding officers and staff lacked confidence or an adequate understanding of the two categories. It found examples of incorrect recording, and indicative of police overreach, resources being unnecessarily deployed to NCHIs.
In 2024 The Times reported that police forces in England and Wales had recorded the following incidents as NCHIs:
- Refusing to shake a person’s hand, which the complainant said was ‘hate related due to gender identity’. Warwickshire Police said this was recorded correctly as a NCHI.
- Stickers and posters that the complainant said belonged to ‘the Terf movement’.
- Expressing ‘personal views on transgender and non-binary’ people and ‘causing upset to others’ in Humberside.
- ‘Transwomen are men’ stickers.
- Misgendering a person and using ‘incorrect pronouns’. In this case, Northumbria police said the incident had been incorrectly classified as an NCHI.
Scotland
In an extraordinary example of organisational confusion, at a Scottish Police Authority Board meeting on 23 May 2024, DCC Alan Speirs told members that details of the ‘other person’ are not recorded on the iVPD.
Regarding non crime hate incidents being recorded on the Vulnerable Persons Database, Members noted there was public concern that the other party (not the reporter) would appear on disclosure checks. Members queried whether this would happen. DCC Speirs responded that it would not. Police Scotland Guidance states that it does not record other party details of non crime hate incidents within the Vulnerable Persons Database.
At no point was this account accurate.
The policy in place before May 2024 provided for recording personal details.
The interim policy in place at the time of the meeting stated that details of the ‘other party’ could recorded in exceptional circumstances:
‘the “other party’s” details will not be routinely recorded. They should only be recorded in exceptional circumstances where the additional threshold has been met that the officers / staff believe there is a real risk of significant harm to individuals or groups who are protected by the legislation and/or a real risk that a future criminal offence may be committed against those individuals or groups. The rationale for recording “other party’s” personal data on iVPD should be clearly articulated in the ‘police action taken’ section.’
Appendix A. Interim guidance – Responding to Hate Police Scotland, 23 May 2024
Recording personal details in exceptional circumstances was then provided for in the finalised Responding to Hate SOP issued in August 2024.
A week after the SPA meeting, Police Scotland conceded that details recorded on an NCHI could be shared under enhanced disclosure procedures if deemed relevant information.
[DCC Speirs] spokesman later admitted that, in a small number of cases, names of people accused of such incidents will be logged on a secret police database – and could be disclosed when people apply to work with children or the elderly.
Even top cops are ‘confused’ about hate crime laws! Daily Mail, 31 May 2024
5. What about existing records?
The respective changes to policy in England, Wales and Scotland raise questions about the legitimacy and proportionality of NCHIs recorded under the previous ‘anything goes’ NCHI regime. Whilst Police Scotland based much of its updated policy on the Code, as detailed next, on the matter of historical records there is clear divergence between the two jurisdictions.
England and Wales
Under the Code, if an NCHI containing personal details is identified as part of a Right of Access request, and does not meet the threshold in the Code it must be deleted and the person informed. Similarly, if an NCHI containing personal details is identified through other means (such as a vetting check) it should be deleted. This includes NCHI records created before the Code was introduced.
68. In the event that an individual makes a Right of Access Request (under UK GDPR Article 15) to determine if a police force holds their personal information in an NCHI record, the controller is required to respond to the original request and provide details of what is held.
69. If, during the course of this process, it is determined by officers or staff that the record should not have been made in the first instance, or the data has been retained in error, it should be deleted. In line with standard Right of Access Request procedures, the individual who made the request should be notified of the data that was held, the fact it has now been deleted, and why it has been deleted. If a record is identified and personal data is retained, the individual should be informed of this in line with standard Right of Access Request procedures.
70. In any context in which police officers and staff come across an NCHI record that contains personal data (for instance, when checking an individual’s record for vetting purposes, during a future investigation, when considering whether an incident should be disclosed on an enhanced criminal record certificate, or in response to a Right of Access Request), and this record was made before this code entered into effect, the first step should be to confirm whether, in line with this code, the record should have been made in the first place. If the record should not have been made, the record should be deleted and not be considered further.
Non-Crime Hate Incidents: Code of Practice on the Recording and Retention of Personal Data 2023 (emphasis added).
HMICFRS reported that most forces reported technical challenges in doing so; but pointed to the need to do so across a range of other business areas, such as body-worn video, records of calls etc.
Scotland
Police Scotland did not adopt the deletion provisions in the Code. It has also refused to delete historical NCHI records when asked to do so.
In late 2023 Police Scotland logged an NCHI about a tweet by Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser that likened identifying as non-binary to identifying as a cat. When made aware of this, Mr Fraser complained and requested that the record be deleted.
Initially Police Scotland stated that it did not hold Mr Fraser’s details. It then dismissed his complaint. A review by the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC) issued in April 2025 established that the single service had recorded his data both on the iVPD and the linked incident log (STORM) and that his name and professional details appeared in both. PIRC directed the single service to review its decision. it is hard to see what possible operational value this record – on identifying as a cat – holds, or how it is proportionate.
Another case known to us relates to an NCHI recording prior to 2024. Police Scotland investigated the allegations at the time, which were not upheld. When asked to delete the record, Police Scotland further acknowledged that the original allegations did not meet the current threshold for storing personal details, nor could it provide a explanation as to why the record should be detained. It nonetheless refused to delete the record.
Both Mr Fraser and the person in the case above only found out by chance about their NCHI records.
At the time of writing, Police Scotland holds thousands of NCHIs recorded under its old perception-based policy. This makes it very likely that the single service holds personal details about people that could be shared in an enhanced disclosure without their knowledge.
Conclusion
NCHIs have occupied an ‘anything goes’ landscape that has seen incidents and personal details readily subsumed under a ‘hate’ umbrella, absent any evidence of criminality.
In response to the Miller case, both the Home Office and Police Scotland raised the threshold for recording NCHIs, replacing the ‘eye of the beholder’ approach with proportionality principles. Nonetheless, as indicated by the recent call by HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary to stop recording NCHIs, it is clear that significant concerns remain.
In England and Wales, compliance with the Code appears inconsistent at best. We are not aware of any information on compliance with the Police Scotland SOP. Data collection and publication is a problem throughout the UK. There is confusion as to what constitutes an NCHI and what should be recorded. In Scotland, a Deputy Chief Constable appeared not to understand the force’s own recording policy. Despite the recent emphasis on proportionality, police forces in England and Wales are reluctant to delete records that are of no operational value and/or do not meet the current recording threshold. In Scotland, the single service has refused requests for deletion, even whilst acknowledging these fall below the current threshold.
In defending the use of NCHIs, police forces across the UK have made wide-ranging claims as to their operational value. But we have found no robust evidence base to support these. After two decades, there are no available evaluations.
If as claimed, recording NCHIs can protect people from harm, prevent crime and so on, it is hard to understand why these protections are not available to other groups or characteristics. Instead, by dint of the underpinning ‘hate crime’ regime, NCHIs have reinforced existing hierarchies between characteristics, allowing for ‘weaponisation’ and vexatious reporting. That women are not protected on the basis of their sex is a particularly revealing omission here, even with belated plans to do so in Scotland.3
What next?
We have previously argued that Police Scotland should undertake a review of all NCHIs recorded prior to May 2021 and weed out records that do not meet the criterion in the 2024 interim policy. The analysis here strongly reinforces that, particularly given Police Scotland’s preference for retaining records that fall below the current recording threshold. Forces in England and Wales should undertake the same weeding exercise.
In the meantime, Police Scotland should adopt the provision in the England and Wales Code of Practice that requires officers to delete NCHI records that do not meet the current threshold, for example, if a record is identified as part of a disclosure application. It should apply the same test if a person asks for an NCHI containing their details to be deleted.
More fundamentally, at the time of writing, there is no clear case to support the ongoing recording of NCHIs or, by implication, the retention of any past records. Unless the forthcoming NPCC/College of Policing Review can provide robust evidence for their value, beyond the current level of assertion, it is hard to justify retaining the practice. This is not to say that police forces should not log reports of low-level incidents and analyse this data. But the specific badging of these as ‘hateful’ and ‘non-crimes’ on the basis of a limited range of characteristics, is a practice where it currently looks easier to demonstrate unfairness and scope for harm, than operational benefit.
Notes
- The Code is provided for in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act 2022. ↩︎
- In the first case, the judge ruled Humberside Police had disproportionately interfered with the rights of free speech of Mr Miller. An appeal focused on the 2014 College of Policing guidance, as followed by Humberside Police. The appeal judge ruled that perception-based recording of NCHIs per was not unlawful per se; but additional safeguards were needed for the incursion into freedom of expression to be no more than strictly necessary. ↩︎
- The Scottish Government has recently announced its intention to extend the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act to include sex as a protected characteristic, Sex is not covered as a hate crime characteristic in England and Wales. ↩︎