Met police abandon investigating online hate

Last week, Graham Linehan was all over the media again as he was informed that no further action would be taken over his hateful social media post. Back in September, the ex-writer turned loser transphobe was arrested whilst returning home for a hate crime trial.

This time, instead of his in-person bigotry, he was arrested for his hate-filled tweets, which often incite pile-ons. The particular tweet he was arrested for instructed people to punch anyone they suspected of being a trans woman in “female-only” spaces. Linehan, known as Glinner online, was at the time banned from tweeting, but this lasted mere days. He was originally arrested over a “potential crime offence”, but it was later downgraded to “an investigation into a non-crime hate incident”.

In light of Glinner’s case being dropped, and the most divorced man ever threatening to sue, the Met Police this week announced that they will no longer investigate what they call “Non-Crime Hate Incidents” (NCHIs).

In a statement, a Met police spokesperson said:

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

They continued that the change would:

provide clearer direction for officers, reduce ambiguity and enable them to focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations.

Discrimination isn’t just schoolyard name-calling

A Non-Crime Hate Incident is any action or speech which is designed to create hostility towards someone based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability. This includes:

verbal abuse
bullying or intimidation
abusive gestures
online abuse on social media
refusing to work with someone or treating them differently
or malicious complaints based on someone’s protected characteristics.

Until this point, the role of police in investigating NCHIs was to identify repeat offenders in particular areas in order to prevent escalation to hate crimes. The Met also (supposedly) used them to safeguard vulnerable people who could be exposed to exploitation. Another vital part of NCHIs was that they could be used to build evidence for prosecutions in cases of hate crime, where proving motive and hostility is already hard enough.

By claiming this hate is just “culture war debates” the police are belittling the treatment and abuse anyone seen as different faces every single day. And, they’re showing potential victims that something which plays a significant role in their lives will be treated as nothing more than a silly trifle that they merely need to grow up and get over.

NCHIs were originally introduced in the aftermath of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry to help ensure early intervention and prevent an escalation into hate crime. The decision to no longer investigate them, especially on the back of a high-profile bigot having his case dropped, shows just how little the police and society take the issue of ever-rising hatred seriously.

Disabled people will face even more barriers to justice

But what does this mean for people who are experiencing these “non-crimes”? Well, as you’ve guessed, it’s not good. Essentially, people like Glinner who target trans people online will be emboldened to be even more hateful under the guise of free speech. Disabled people have also expressed concern, as the government and media’s hatred of us ramps up even more; we’re subjected to horrific levels of online abuse, which often translate into real life too.

Disabled people already face massive systemic barriers to justice, and disability hate crime figures are horrendously low. As John Pring reported on Disability News Service, despite there being over 56,000 disability hate crimes reported in England and Wales last year, just 297 faced prosecution, with an even worse 214 convictions.

There’s also the fact that the police are already massively biased towards disabled people within the Met. In the Casey review, it was found that 33 per cent of staff with a disability or long-term illness had been bullied by other officers. The report stated

disability discrimination is the most frequent claim type brought against the Met. But there is no willingness to learn from these cases.

How are we supposed to trust that the police will take disability hate crime seriously when, not only will they refuse to investigate incidents that can lead to crimes, but are also demonstrably a bunch of ableist arseholes themselves?

Bowing to pressure

As a disabled, queer woman who supports trans people and migrants very publicly on social media, I know all too well how much hatred is incited by those who wish to silence us. I can’t go a few days without being told I’ll be next.

Instead of bowing to the pressure of dangerous, hateful, high-profile bigots, the police need to be paying more attention to the threats they’re making to those who can’t stand up for themselves than being worried about them making the Met look bad.

The Met have already got that job covered.

Featured image via the Canary