Non-Crime Hate Incidents (NCHIs) are set to be scrapped under proposals due to be presented to the Home Secretary in January.
It has been a long time coming, but it now appears the end of the Orwellian Non-Crime Hate Incident is in sight.
Police leaders have finally acknowledged what the Free Speech Union has long argued: that NCHIs are simply “not fit for purpose”. The chair of the College of Policing and former Conservative policing minister, Lord Herbert, has confirmed that NCHIs “will go as a concept” and be replaced entirely: “There will be no recording of anything like it on crime databases,” he said. “Instead, only the most serious cases, treated as anti-social behaviour, will be recorded. It’s a sea change.”
Since its formation in 2020, the Free Speech Union has spent five years campaigning for the abolition of NCHIs, encountering some truly egregious cases along the way — including nine-year-old children having NCHIs logged against them for words said in the playground.
This latest development offers cause for cautious optimism. Should the Home Secretary accept proposals from police chiefs to scrap NCHIs, it would represent a significant victory for free speech.
There have already been notable successes in 2025. Following the Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) announcement on 20 October that it would take no further action against Graham Linehan — after he was arrested at Heathrow by five armed police officers over three social media posts — the Metropolitan Police confirmed it would no longer investigate NCHIs.
Earlier in the year, the Leader of His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition and the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, announced that the Conservative Party would scrap NCHIs if it won the next general election. This commitment followed sustained lobbying by the Free Speech Union to secure political change.
NCHIs have represented a gross misuse of police time, resources and taxpayer money. Research shows they consume around 60,000 hours of police time annually, with more than 13,000 incidents recorded in the year to June 2024 alone. Since 2014, over 130,000 people have had an NCHI recorded against their name — often without their knowledge, as police are under no obligation to inform the individual concerned.
More troubling still is the chilling effect NCHIs have had on free speech. They have frequently been weaponised by activist groups to silence dissent. Among the most egregious cases is that of Helen Jones, a grandmother visited by police over a social media post calling for a Labour councillor to resign from an offensive WhatsApp group. Another is the journalist Allison Pearson, who received a visit from Essex Police on Remembrance Sunday 2024 over a tweet she had deleted a year earlier.
The most pernicious aspect of NCHIs is that they can be disclosed for up to six years on an enhanced DBS check — meaning individuals may be denied employment for conduct that was never a crime. This is particularly damaging for those seeking work with children or vulnerable people, roles that are already in high demand.
While the Free Speech Union welcomes proposals to end the logging of NCHIs on crime databases — with only the most serious cases recorded as anti-social behaviour — serious questions remain.
Old NCHIs must be deleted as part of this reform. The Home Secretary must address this glaring injustice. Lord Young of Acton, founder and general secretary of the Free Speech Union, has warned: “There will be at least 100,000 existing NCHIs sitting on people’s records and still disclosable on DBS checks.”
He added: “The fact that you have done something which is not a crime should not prevent you from getting a job.”
Police resources should be focused on tackling real crime that causes real harm — burglary, rape and sexual assault. In 2023, 90 per cent of crimes went unsolved, yet 13,000 people were arrested for ‘offensive’ social media posts and messages.
Lord Young, alongside former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Hogan-Howe, has tabled an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill in the House of Lords to abolish NCHIs entirely and delete existing records. The amendment would also prevent any future recorded hate incidents from being considered in employment background checks. They will not be withdrawing this amendment.
The Free Speech Union will continue to monitor developments closely. For now, however, there are encouraging signs that the country may finally be moving back towards common-sense policing.Read more in The Telegraph.