Lord Hogan-Howe, who led Britain’s biggest police force between 2011 and 2017, and Lord Young of Acton, head of the Free Speech Union, have tabled an amendment to the Government’s Crime and Policing Bill that would stop requiring police to record NCHIs. It would abolish NCHIs as a special category of incident that must be recorded by officers.
The bill is being scrutinised in the Lords. Hogan-Howe and Young’s amendment is understood to have received the backing of dozens of crossbenchers in addition to the Conservatives, which means it has a good chance of succeeding.
If the amendment is voted through the Lords it will force the Government to either accept the scrapping of NCHIs or to use its majority in the Commons to overturn the amendment when it returns from the upper chamber.
NCHIs are supposed to be reserved for incidents that fall below the criminal threshold but help forces to develop intelligence on situations that could escalate into more serious harm or heightened community tensions.
Official guidance tells officers to record incidents that are “clearly motivated by intentional hostility” with a real risk of escalation “causing a significant harm or a criminal offence”.
They were introduced in 2014 after recommendations prompted by the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in London in 1993. However, they have been increasingly used by forces to record petty arguments and trivial online spats. Critics claim they are stifling freedom of speech and wasting police time....<<<Read More>>>...
