The ‘Wrong Man’ to accuse of a hate incident
from Christian Concern:
Former police officer Harry Miller writes about his important legal case against the police for recording non-crime hate incidents. Harry explains why the police picked ‘the wrong man’ when they found him guilty without trial of a non-crime hate incident.
There was a short exchange at my recent Court of Appeal hearing in which Lady Justice Simler, her eyes wide with dawning, put it to opposing Queens Counsel that under the current hate crime guidance she would be better off accused of a crime than a non-crime hate incident (NCHI). Accused of a crime, she noted, she could at least rely on the presumption of innocence. By contrast, accused of an NCHI, not only are the police relieved of the tiresome burden of proof, they are not even required to provide evidence. All that is necessary for an accusation to stick is the pointing finger of an accuser. No wonder Lady Simler raised a brow. In a less reverential setting, she might have raised the roof.
My NCHI reads as follows:
“Police Crime Report. Suspect: Harry Miller. Offence: Transphobic Hate. Category: Crime non crime.”
The record will remain on a police database, unmovable, for at least 6 years. If this isn’t intrusion enough, consider this: the NCHI is disclosable via a criminal records check should I find myself applying for a position which requires one. My days as a lecturer, it seems, are over as no-one wants to employ a Hater.
Were the police correct? Did my social media account reveal a nascent danger to a vulnerable group? The High Court interrogated each of the tweets identified by the police as being a precursor to criminal escalation and concluded that I was not even in the foothills. Nevertheless, at the insistence of The College of Policing, I remain on a Database of Hate; it is because of this extra judicial fallacy that we wound up in The Court of Appeal.
Presiding alongside Lady Justice Simler and President of The Queens’ Bench Division Dame Victoria Sharp, was Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, who pitched in with his own hypothesis. “What would be the fate of a child who cited a Bible verse to support the position that homosexuality is a sin?” he asked. “Would such a child be recorded as a hater?”
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