A Bedfordshire man has ended up with a police record for “racial hatred” after whistling the theme tune to Bob The Builder at his neighbour.
Police in Bedfordshire recorded the interaction as a non-crime hate incident, which will remain on their file for six years.
The record could be disclosed to potential employers, impacting the man’s chances of getting a new job, if a potential employer asks for a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, the non-crime hate incident could show up.
As a result of Hate Crime Guidelines, which took effect in 2014, police are obliged to record any incident a member of the public believes was motivated by hate, even if nothing criminal took place.
In 2020 alone, 10,840 non-crime hate incidents were logged across the country, with 120,000 recorded since the new system was introduced.
According to reports from the Express further examples include citing a swimming teacher in West Yorkshire given a police record after a child’s mother claimed her son had been allowed to bang his head against the side of the pool ‘due to his ethnicity’, and a gay man who claimed he had been ripped off by a drug dealer because of his sexuality.
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, Harry Miller, an ex-police officer from campaign group Fair Cop, said: “The police have completely lost the plot.”
The Tory Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicester and Rutland, Rupert Matthews, also raised his concerns.
He commented: “The police have got more than enough to do and if it is not a crime then we cannot be putting resources into it.
Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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