Harry Miller.
Have you ever wondered why, if your house is burgled, or if you're robbed in the street, the police don't have the manpower ( or should that now be "personpower"? ) to investigate it? It's because they are wasting vast amounts of time and manpower - not to mention public money - investigating people's speech!
On the previous page, I mentioned the slogan "Police our streets, not our tweets!" This is anything but a joke! In recent years, our country has increasingly come to resemble the former East Germany under the Stasi, with thousands of people being arrested for "offensive" or "malicious" posts on social media. The case of Lucy Connolly ( Section 2.5 ) was simply the worst of many.
But even worse than this is the nonsensical concept of people ending up with a police record, and in some cases, being prevented from getting a job, for committing a "non-crime"!
3.1. "Non-crime hate incidents"
In 2014, the UK's College of Policing, in its "Hate Crime Operational Guidance", decided that police officers should automatically record "hate incidents", "irrespective of whether there is any evidence to identify the hate element". A hate incident is defined as any incident which is "perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice".
If an alleged "hate incident" is investigated by the police, and found not to meet the criteria to be classed as a crime, then it's recorded as a "non-crime hate incident" or NCHI. This is recorded against the "offender's" name, so that he effectively gains a police record, for having committed a "non-crime"!
Er - what? If an "incident" is deemed not to be a crime, then for what bizarre reason does it need to be recorded by the police?
And that's not all... If a person has an NCHI recorded against him - and in some cases, the "offender" is not even informed of the fact - then it can show up in enhanced DBS ( Disclosure and Barring Service ) checks - the checks which are required for many job applications, to prove that the applicant does not have a criminal record. It doesn't show on a standard DBS check, but does on an enhanced one, which is required for certain professions, such as teaching or any other which involves working with children. So in those professions, a person can literally be prevented from getting a job, due to having committed a "non-crime"!
An NCHI remains on a person's record for six years. And when one is recorded against a child - yes, that does happen! - then it is not removed from their record when they turn 18, as is the case for actual criminal convictions! So if a 17-year-old has an NCHI recorded, then they could be prevented from ever getting a job in certain professions until they reach 23 - again, for committing a "non-crime".
Note that this absurd concept was never established by any law or act of Parliament; it was simply invented by the College of Policing. But why? Let's return to the question of why a "non-crime" is any business of the police.
According to the College of Policing, its purpose is "intelligence gathering", to allow the police to keep watch on "community tensions". Initially, this specifically meant racial tensions, which could potentially escalate into violence; in practice, it means that if any individual publicly expresses a racist opinion, either verbally or on social media, then it's assumed that he is likely to progress to committing an actual hate crime - which is itself ridiculous.
It has often been said that this is the real life equivalent of George Orwell's "thoughtcrime" – but there is perhaps a closer analogy. Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick imagined the concept of "pre-crime", whereby a future police force somehow has the ability to "see the future", and arrests people for crimes which they have not yet committed. In today's reality, the police seem to think they can see the future.
But the use of NCHIs has been expanded to include all kinds of alleged "hostility or prejudice", against any person's "protected characteristic" - race, religion, sexual orientation, "gender identity", etc. Inevitably, the system has been hijacked by the "What can I be offended by today?" brigade, to silence anyone who dares to express any opinion with which they personally disagree! This applies not only to social media posts, but also to any verbal comment in a public place.
Yet again, this contradicts Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which explicitly states that the right of free speech includes "the right to offend" ( see Section 2.8 ).
Look again at the above definition of an NCHI, and the phrase, "irrespective of whether there is any evidence to identify the hate element". Yes, you read that correctly; the guidance actually says there doesn’t need to be any actual evidence!!! All it takes is that a single person perceives someone else's social media post, or even verbal comment, as being motivated by a hostility or prejudice. Note also "perceived, by the victim or any other person". It doesn’t even have to be the "victim" of the alleged hostility or prejudice who complains; it can be any other person who happens to read a social media post, or who simply overhears someone else's verbal comment, which they personally consider offensive - even if no-one else does - and takes it on themselves to report it to the police! They can even do so anonymously.
So quite literally, a person can end up with a police record, and be prevented from getting certain jobs, for having an opinion which some random stranger doesn't like!
In 2021, after campaigner Harry Miller ( see Section 3.2 ) appealed against an NCHI, the Appeal Court declared the "Hate Crime Operational Guidance" unlawful - but the police continued to follow it anyway! Two years later, the Home Office issued statutory guidance to stop the police investigating "trivial, irrational and malicious" complaints - but again, the police ignored it and continued to do exactly that.
Can there possibly be anything more trivial or irrational than the police investigating children for calling each other names in the playground? There have recently been cases of an NCHI recorded against a nine-year-old child ( note that that's below the legal age of responsibility! ) for calling another child a "retard", and against a child for calling another "smelly". Do we really want the police to waste their time on such petty stupidity?
Journalist Tom Slater has described the police, in investigating such trivia, as "acting like a cross between the Stasi and the Keystone Kops". I couldn't put it better myself!
Thankfully, all this madness is coming to an end! In December 2025, the National Council of Police Chiefs finally admitted that NCHIs are "not fit for purpose", and recommended that they be scrapped in favour of a "common sense approach". In response to a Freedom of Information request by the FSU, a number of forces also acknowledged that they had never even used records of NCHIs for the original intended purpose of "intelligence gathering". And coincidentally, on the very day that I write this, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced that the statutory guidance will be revoked, and NCHIs finally abolished - at least in England and Wales, but not in Scotland or Northern Ireland - possibly the only sensible thing this Government has yet done!
So hopefully, it will soon be goodbye to this whole idiotic concept – and good riddance!
3.2. Some real examples
Harry Miller is a businessman and a former police officer from Lincolnshire, who has been outspoken against so-called "gender ideology". In 2019, an anonymous person complained about a series of his "gender-critical" social media posts, accusing him of being "transphobic". The posts included one in which he simply re-tweeted a satirical poem, which he didn't write himself, and the joke, "I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don't mis-species me."
Miller was visited at his workplace by a young, and apparently over-zealous, officer from Humberside Police - not even his county of residence - who used the bizarre, Orwellian words, "I need to check your thinking" - whatever that means!
Miller's response was brilliant: "You do realise that 1984 is a dystopian novel, not a police procedure manual!" But it was lost on the officer, who had apparently never heard of the novel! An NCHI was recorded against him. The officer advised him not to engage in political debate on Twitter, "because some people don’t like it". Doesn't that contradict every fundamental principle of democracy???
Miller later challenged both Humberside Police's action and the College of Policing guidance in the High Court. It was ruled that the force's action was a "disproportionate interference" with his right to freedom of expression. A court of appeal later ruled that the "Hate Crime Operational Guidance" is itself unlawful, and has a "chilling effect" on freedom of speech. The judge who presided over the case didn't mince his words, stating that, "In this country, we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi."
In Mr. Miller's words: "Being offensive is not, cannot and should not be an offence. Only when speech turns to malicious communication or targeted harassment against an individual should it be a problem."
Then there was the bizarre case of the late Deborah Anderson, an American citizen and grandmother who lived in Reading. At the time of this incident, she was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer; she has since died.
In June 2025, Ms. Anderson was visited at her home by an officer of Thames Valley Police, who informed her that there had been an anonymous complaint that something which she had written on Facebook had "upset someone".
Er – what? Since when is it the concern of the police that someone is "upset"?
During this meeting, which Ms. Anderson videoed in its entirety on her phone, and which was subsequently viewed nearly six million times, she asked the officer why he wasn't investigating any actual crime: "Aren’t there any houses that have been burgled recently? Any rapes or murders?"
The officer suggested that she could apologise for her "offensive" posts; otherwise he would have to take her to the police station for an interview - despite acknowledging that she was not being arrested, and had not broken any law. Yet he wasn't able to tell her who had made the complaint, or even which particular post the complaint was about! So she was being asked to apologise, without knowing to whom she would be apologising, or what for!!!
Ms. Anderson refused to do so, telling him that she was an American citizen and a member of the Free Speech Union. He told her that he would have to come back later and arrange an interview, to which she replied that she would bring a FSU lawyer.
The FSU took up the case, and the investigation was dropped. Yet the police were still not able to say which post had "upset someone", claiming that they had "accidentally" deleted the record of the complaint. Yeah, right!
3.3. Another kind of non-crime
A law is currently being proposed in Parliament, to "make misogyny an aggravated hate crime". But this makes absolutely no sense!
Obviously, I'm not in any way condoning misogyny, or violence against women! But how can misogyny, in and of itself, be defined as a "hate crime"? A hate crime is an actual crime which is motivated by hate or prejudice ( be it misogyny, racism, "homophobia", etc. ) - not the prejudice itself!
It is not a crime to be a misogynist, any more than it's a crime to be racist, "homophobic", etc. - and nor can it possibly be! That's a logical impossibility; it would literally be the equivalent of Orwell's "thoughtcrime", and would require the police to somehow be capable of reading people's thoughts! It only becomes a crime when someone acts in accordance with their prejudice.
For example, if I state my belief that "Trans women are not women; they are men in drag", then some will accuse me of being "transphobic" - but that in itself is not a crime, is it? It is not a crime to hold or express an opinion which some consider offensive - as much as some in this Government would like it to be! If I was to make that statement in public, or refuse to use a person's "preferred pronouns", then it may well be recorded as a so-called NCHI - but thankfully, as I've said in Section 3.1, that ridiculous concept is close to being abolished.
It would only become a crime if I followed it up by, say, physically assaulting a man who pretends to be a woman - not that I’m ever going to do so!
Defining misogyny as an aggravating factor in actual violent crimes obviously does make sense, just as it does for racism or any other prejudice - but defining misogyny itself as a crime is utterly nonsensical. Of course, misogyny is manifested in other ways besides violence; for example, a man might discriminate against women in the workplace - but that is already an offence under employment law.
Furthermore, whichever of the above definitions one wants to apply, how can it possibly only apply one way? Domestic violence is not only committed by men against women; the other way around is obviously far less common, but that is not to say it doesn't exist! For that matter, it also happens between same sex couples.
This absurd idea of "making misogyny a hate crime" was proposed by some Labour MPs several years ago, when their party was in Opposition. The subject was once brought up on Question Time by a male Labour MP on the panel, who ended up making a prat of himself. A woman in the audience made the above point that domestic violence happens both ways, and asked the MP, "How can you make misogyny a crime, but not the opposite?"
The MP looked puzzled, so the woman continued, "Do you even know what the opposite is called? Are you even aware that there is a word for the opposite?"
The MP's expression of bewilderment clearly indicated that he was not even aware that a word exists for the opposite, hatred of men! Duh!!! For the record, the word is misandry - which is in fact fairly obvious to anyone with any comprehension of etymology.
Therefore, it surely stands to reason that any proposed law which simply refers to misogyny is itself discriminatory, and must refer to "misogyny or misandry"!