Police forces should prioritise fighting crime that “matters most to their communities” rather than spending public money on investigations involving hurt feelings, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
The prime minister said forces would be “held to account” for their decisions, after The Times revealed that more than 13,000 non-crime hate incidents were recorded in the past year, including complaints against schoolchildren.
Downing Street sources confirmed that Starmer believed police should focus resources on offences such as theft and criminal damage, rather than non-crime.
Starmer’s comments were made after controversy arose about Essex police’s investigation into a year-old tweet by a national newspaper columnist. Allison Pearson’s now-deleted tweet is being treated as a criminal matter, rather than a non-crime hate incident, but the investigation has caused concern among freedom of speech campaigners.
Starmer was asked on Sunday if police forces should be prioritising freedom of speech over hurt feelings, in reference to concern over the amount of non-crime incidents being recorded.
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He said: “Obviously, this is a matter for the police themselves, police force by police force. They can make their decisions and will obviously be held to account for those decisions.
“I think that as a general principle the police should concentrate on what matters most to their communities.”
Two officers visited Pearson, a Daily Telegraph journalist, at home on Remembrance Sunday over what they described as “an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online”. It is said to relate to a tweet she posted, then deleted, last year.
Essex police said: “We police without fear or favour and that’s why we respond to alleged offences which are reported to us by members of the public.”
The feminist writer Julie Bindel has also said that police visited her home to warn her they were investigating one of her tweets as a “hate crime”.
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Bindel, 62, said that two Metropolitan Police officers had knocked on her door on a Sunday afternoon in 2019. They are said to have told her that a “transgender man” from the Netherlands had reported one of her social media posts.
Bindel, a gender-critical women’s rights campaigner, said she was not allowed to know which tweet had prompted the investigation. She also claims she was not told what category of hate crime it related to.
The officers asked her to voluntarily attend her local police station to make a statement, she said, but she refused and the matter was later dropped. She described the visit as “Orwellian” and said detectives “could better use their time investigating rape and domestic violence”.
Bindel said: “I know the law on these issues, and am well aware they had no chance in getting the Crown Prosecution Service to press charges.
“Nevertheless, I thought about the women who have lost jobs, been hounded out of college courses, friendship groups and university societies, as well as those who would have found it distressing to be threatened with a hate crime conviction for no good reason.
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“A criminal record is a serious issue and can have a terrible effect on a person’s livelihood, reputation, and self-esteem.
“Police coming after those of us who do nothing more than speak the truth about gender madness and refuse to bend the knee to the crazy cultists are doing a massive public disservice.
“Unless there is a very good reason not to, we must all publicly protest this terrible infringement of our human rights.”
The Metropolitan Police said it had no record of the incident.
A spokesman said: “We take all reports of hate crime extremely seriously and are committed to investigating allegations thoroughly and impartially where they are made. Our approach seeks to balance the right to free speech with our duty to protect individuals and our communities from harm.”
