A police visit to Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson in relation to a social media post made last year raised questions about ensuring freedom of expression.

Since 2014, tens of thousands of non-criminal hate incidents (NCHI) were recorded, at a time when the normal procedural work of the police in England and Wales broke down.

These reports are speech or posts deemed by the police to be “bias-motivated” but do not meet the threshold of a crime. Despite the fact that there is no crime, individuals are recorded by the police and incidents can even appear in background checks known as Disclosure and Barring Service checks.

Despite the potential seriousness of reports, police forces are not required by the Home Office to report their useleaving journalists at the mercy of piecemeal Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to individual police forces.

NCHI uses skyrocketing with some force

Between 2014 and 2019, an estimated 21,480 NCHIs were registered each year in 34 of the country’s 45 forces, according to a previous FOI request by The Telegraph.

For context, in 2019 the police issued just 11,000 fines for crime across all forces.

A high-profile court case in 2020 highlighted the extent of the problem, and in 2023, then Home Secretary Suella Braverman called for a crackdown on their use.

In contrast, in the year ending June 2024, 11,690 NCHIs were issued across 30 forces, a figure almost identical to the previous year, according to an FOI request from the Freedom of Expression Union. A number of forces posted double-digit increases year-over-year.