Non-crime hate incidents should no longer be recorded by all police forces, a review has recommended.
The National Police Chief’s Council and College of Policing are carrying out a review of non-crime hate incidents, which is due to report in December.
An interim report submitted last week to policing minister Sarah Jones called for the practice of recording such incidents be scrapped by forces across England and Wales, The Times reports.
Under a new system, officers and call handlers would record information only where there was a clear risk of harm, the newspaper adds.
It comes after the Metropolitan Police announced on Monday that it is no longer investigating non-crime hate incidents.
The move came after it emerged Father Ted creator Graham Linehan will face no further action over social media posts he made about transgender issues, after he was arrested at Heathrow Airport in September.
Assistant Chief Constable Tom Harding, director of operational standards at the College of Policing, told The Times he expected the new system would cause a “significant reduction” in incident recording.
He said: “We will remove NCHIs [non-hate crime incidents] in their current form.
A review has recommended that non-crime hate incidents should no longer be recorded by all police forces
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GETTY“We’re not here to deal with differences of opinion or online fallings-out — policing’s job is to protect people from harm.
“At the moment, anything that causes a member of the public concern must be recorded — that’s vast. It’s gone far beyond policing’s core responsibilities.”
Mr Harding added that the current definition of NCHIs has “drifted too far from what policing is here to do”.
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