Non-crime hate incidents to be scrapped by all police forces with plans for new 'common sense' system revealed

Instead, they are to be replaced with a "common sense" system, meaning just a small portion of incidents will now be reported under a serious category of anti-social behaviour.

The plans are to be published next month and are expected to be backed by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.

The chairman of the College of Policing, Lord Herbert, told The Telegraph: "NCHIs will go as a concept. That system will be scrapped and replaced with a completely different system.

"There will be no recording of anything like it on crime databases. Instead, only the most serious category of what will be treated as anti-social behaviour will be recorded. It’s a sea change."

He added controversial and high-profile arrests and investigations, for example that of Graham Linehan, would not occur anymore.

The Father Ted co-creator was arrested at Heathrow Airport earlier this year in relation to his posts on X, where he expressed views about challenging "a trans-identified male" in "a female-only space".

His case was later dropped with no further charges.

NCHIs are where a person acts with hostility or prejudice towards a person with a particular characteristic, such as, race, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or gender.

These can be recorded indefinitely and may also show up in background checks.

In October, the Metropolitan Police confirmed they would no longer investigate such incidents.

"The Commissioner has 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 at the time.

"As a result, the Met will no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents."

However, research conducted by Guido Fawkes showed that, since the Met's announcement on October 20, the number of NCHIs reported has actually increased.

From August 1 to the date of the announcement on October 20, the Met was recording an average of 50 non-crime hate incidents per week.

But in the week after the announcement, recordings actually went up at an average of 58 in seven days.

Lord Hebson said the upcoming changes were necessary because the system was no longer "fit for purpose" after the meteoric rise in popularity of social media.

The system was introduced in 1999 following the Macpherson Inquiry into Stephen Lawrence's murder, in an attempt to monitor hate in communities.

The new plans will change instructions for officers, moving away from logging "hate" incidents and instead treating them as "intelligence".

Officers will also be issued a "common sense" checklist, supposedly preventing them from intervening in disputes over tweets or comments.

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