Communities will welcome focus on ‘actual hate crime’, says justice minister

Communities will welcome a focus on “actual hate crime”, the justice minister said after Britain’s biggest force indicated it would stop policing “toxic culture war debates”.

Sarah Sackman described the move by the Metropolitan Police to stop investigating non-crime hate incidents as “welcome news”.

The Met’s announcement came as it emerged Father Ted creator Graham Linehan will face no further action over social media posts about transgender issues.

The 57-year-old Irish comedy writer was arrested at Heathrow Airport after flying in from Arizona in September on suspicion of inciting violence over three posts he had made on X.

The arrest sparked controversy, with Conservative politicians and Harry Potter author JK Rowling among those who voiced their outrage.

Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said at the time that officers were in “an impossible position” when dealing with statements made online.

Following Linehan’s announcement on Monday that the investigation into his posts had been dropped, a spokesperson for the Met said the commissioner had been “clear he doesn’t believe officers should be policing toxic culture war debates, with current laws and rules on inciting violence online leaving them in an impossible position”.

The force said the decision to no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents would now “provide clearer direction for officers, reduce ambiguity and enable them to focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations”.

Non-crime hate incidents are incidents that do not count as crimes but are perceived to be motivated by hatred towards certain characteristics such as race or gender.

Ms Sackman said she believed communities wanted police to focus on activities such as mugging and antisocial behaviour rather than non-crime hate incidents.

She told the PA news agency: “I’m told time and time again by constituents that what they want is for the police to focus on the crimes that hit them hard in their communities – violent crime, phone snatching, mugging, antisocial behaviour, the kind of crime that eats into the core of our communities.

“And for the police to say that they’re going to be turning their focus on to those areas of crime, I think is welcome news.”

Asked if other forces should follow suit in not investigating non-crime hate incidents, she said: “I think that other forces need to make the decisions that are right for their communities.

“But I’m sure that communities up and down the country would want that renewed focus on violent crime, on antisocial behaviour, and on actual hate crime.”

The Met has said it will still record non-crime hate incidents to use as “valuable pieces of intelligence to establish potential patterns of behaviour or criminality”.