The whole thing needs serious consideration, vast amounts of police time are being wasted on non criminal trivia. If the activity is not a crime it is not for the police to 'investigate', I am told by a serving police officer that children's squabbles in the school playground are being reported to the police as hate crime because one child called the one he was squabbling with a fat bastard. These kind of complaints are not unusual in these I am so easily offended days, and it is about time that the situation was taken hold of and people told to grow up and act their age!

@The Good Badger I think you'll find the authority is that of bandwagon climbing Chief Constables and PCC's some of whom seem to consider that someone disagreeing with a post on social media amounts to 'cyber/hate crime' and have recruited 'fast track detectives' (usually fresh out of university) to deal with them, when the reality is they couldn't detect a pimple on the ends of their nose.

The three guidance bullet points listed are rational and common sense.But the reviewed 'guidance' had to be kick started following the Court of Appeal hearing in this case. The yardstick at ground level does still seem to be working around the same definitions. A hate crime is defined as 'Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race , religion ,sexual orientation , disability, transgender ( or perceptions of) A hate incident is any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someone’s prejudice towards them because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender. My understanding of this is that the aggrieved/those aggrieved on another's behalf can still 'report' but police are now making decisions as to whether that 'report' will be 'recorded' and entered on official figures. I feel sorry for the poor incumbents at police units making those decisions and informing them that what they are saying is basically 'trivial, irrational,has no basis' A dose of reality does not go down well with some.

Using those two examples to justify the recording of a non crime hate crime!! Both were subjected to a course of criminal behaviour. It is not the same as someone on twitter having a pop about an issue such as transgender rights to use female safe places. These kind of internet spats should not be dealt with by the police. If the permanently offended have a complaint try to get the internet provider to deal with it.

The whole concept of hate crime is flawed and should be abolished. A crime is a crime is a crime and should be dealt with as such. Non crime is not a matter for the police.

Whole careers have been built on creating the current policing environment, where thousands of hours are spent on recording, allocating, writing up, collating, analysing and reporting hundreds of thousands of non-crime "Hurty Words" incidents. Imagine all that time and effort directed in to to proactive policing (if such a thing still exists) or the investigation of serious crime. No wonder policing is in such a mess.

So the police officers are now expected to respond to someone’s hurt feelings then!!!!

The matters referred to are not 'Hate Crimes', unless a substantive criminal offence is disclosed. Under all other circumstances they are 'Intelligence' and should be recorded and acted upon in line with the ususal protocols. This is actually very simple and does not require wholesale re-ivention of the wheel and yet another review by the utterly pointless College of Policing as it desperately seeks relevance and a role.