The UK government has formally scrapped its system of recording non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), which for years has controversially seen police forces divert their resources into investigating lawful speech, online arguments and even silent prayer.
The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, declared officers would “no longer be policing perfectly legal tweets” and could instead focus on patrolling streets and catching criminals.
Mahmoud announced the reforms following a review by the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs’ Council.
The move ends a policy that originated in the mid-2000s as an intelligence-gathering tool, in the wake of the 1993 murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.
Originally intended to help prevent crime and safeguard communities by logging perceived hostility based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or other protected characteristics, the guidance evolved into a sprawling bureaucracy.
However, the Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, dismissed the announcement as ineffective, arguing it would do nothing to free up police resources.
“This is simply a rebrand of non-crime hate incidents with a more restrictive triage process,” he said.
“Reports are still logged, personal data still recorded, and disclosure rules are unchanged. Officers and staff will still be tied up monitoring incidents that do not meet the criminal threshold, at a cost in time and resources.”
By the 2010s and 2020s, NCHIs were being recorded even when no criminal offence had occurred, at times for nothing more than a perceived slight in person or on social media.
Between 2022 and 2025 alone, around 30,000 such incidents were logged. They were often tied to spikes in online debate, or controversial events such as Hamas’s attacks on Israel in October 2023.
Critics long argued, however, that the scheme created a chilling effect on expression.
Police forces across England and Wales were drawn into “everyday rows and online spats”. Unclear 2011-era guidance led to inconsistent enforcement and recording of personal data that could now appear on enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service checks.
The Metropolitan Police had already signalled the end of the era in October 2025, when it announced it would cease investigating NCHIs altogether.
That decision followed the high-profile dropping of an investigation into Irish television show Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan, who was arrested at Heathrow Airport over social-media posts about transgender issues.
The case was ultimately treated as a non-crime hate incident before being abandoned, prompting the Met to state that officers would now focus only on matters meeting the criminal threshold.
Graham Linehan, an Irish comedy writer and women’s rights activist, was arrested at the UK’s Heathrow Airport by armed police over three tweets that it was alleged were a call to violence. https://t.co/wmFxLYzvyN
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) September 3, 2025
The old regime’s absurdities to many were starkly illustrated in numerous cases which crossed into policing thought and belief.
Christian street preachers found themselves visited by officers or threatened with NCHIs simply for quoting the Bible.
In one widely publicised incident, a preacher was detained and warned of a non-crime hate incident after questioning passages from the Qur’an during public discourse. Officers explicitly stated they were recording it as a NCHI despite no crime being committed.
Perhaps most emblematic were the repeated ordeals of pro-life volunteer Isabel Vaughan-Spruce.
She was arrested multiple times – and later charged – for the apparent crime of silently praying while standing near an abortion facility in Birmingham.
Under Public Spaces Protection Orders (buffer zones) that prohibit any “expression of approval or disapproval” of abortion, her silent thoughts were deemed sufficient grounds for police action.
Despite being cleared in court on previous occasions and receiving a £13,000 pay out from West Midlands Police, she faced further investigation and prosecution as recently as late 2025.
Officers had questioned her about her private prayers, turning private belief into a matter for the state.
Such episodes fuelled growing outrage that Britain had slipped into a form of “thought policing” at odds with its common law traditions.
Free-speech campaigners and police federations welcomed the scrapping equally, noting it would free thousands of officer hours otherwise wasted on non-crimes.
A government amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill has already revoked the statutory code of practice underpinning NCHIs.
In its place comes a new, narrower national standard. Incidents will now only be recorded if genuinely relevant to core policing duties such as preventing crime, safeguarding or maintaining public order.
No crime reference numbers will be issued for these new categories, and lawful speech will explicitly be protected.
Full implementation is expected in early 2027, with triage systems, training and even AI tools to assist call-handlers.
The House of Lords added momentum to this new course earlier this month when peers voted to go further than the government’s initial pledges, banning the processing of personal data for NCHIs in many circumstances.
Ministers have now accepted the full review recommendations, describing the old system as “no longer fit for purpose”.
The entire saga has long been viewed with incredulity across the Atlantic, where free speech is constitutionally protected, and has caused friction with the US government.
