Sir Mark Rowley has called for officers to have greater discretion to use their ‘common sense’. Photo / Getty Images
Britain’s most senior police officer is to present the new Home Secretary with proposed law changes “within weeks” aimed at stopping officers from policing tweets, the Telegraph can disclose.
Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Met Police, is proposing a shake-up of legislation that would give officers greater discretion to use “common sense” when deciding whether to record and investigate complaints about comments on social media.
He wants Shabana Mahmood, the new Home Secretary, to change the rules so police officers are not required to record or investigate complaints when there is no evidence the suspect intended real-world harm.
The changes could also significantly reduce the requirement for police to record and attend non-crime hate incidents, which have included cases such as a 9-year-old calling a primary school classmate a “retard”.
Rowley’s proposals to protect free speech are being drawn up with other senior officers and follow the row last week over the arrest at Heathrow of comedy writer Graham Linehan, after a complaint about his tweet threatening to kick a trans-identified male “in the balls” if they were in a female-only space.
It was the latest in a raft of free speech scandals involving forces across Britain. Allison Pearson, the Telegraph columnist, was previously threatened with prosecution over a post on X, while a former policeman arrested for a comment about Palestine was forced to endure a search during which officers discussed his taste in “Brexity” books.
Reform UK has seized on the issue, with party leader Nigel Farage raising it in a speech to the US Congress last week. Addressing his own party conference in the UK, Farage vowed to fight Labour on the issue and vowed that Reform would “police the streets and not the tweets”.
Mahmood indicated last week she wanted a more “common sense” approach when she told a Lords Committee that police should guard against “over-reach” and “needed to focus on the day job” of tackling “crime in our communities”.
A source close to Rowley said: “Regulations that were understandably intended to improve policing and laws that were intended to protect the vulnerable, are now tying officers’ hands, removing appropriate professional discretion – which some call common sense – and risk losing public confidence.
“The Met is working with wider policing to rapidly develop solid proposals for where reform is possible – either in policy and guidance or the law – which could be ready within weeks. For instance, one of the areas where Sir Mark has been very clear previously is the need to bring more common sense to how police record and handle non-crime hate incidents.
“We’re grateful for the willingness being shown by Government to help us bring about genuine reform and conversations are already under way about how this can be achieved. Working out how to balance free speech with a safer online world is not like investigating crime on the streets. We won’t achieve everything overnight but there’s a collective desire not to lose time on this.”
Concerns have been raised about non-crime hate incidents, which are defined as incidents that fall short of being criminal but are perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards a person with a particular characteristic.
They are intended to provide forces with an intelligence picture of community tensions and help them understand where problems might suddenly arise, but have often resulted in police intervening in social media spats, with critics claiming they have a chilling effect on free speech.
More than 13,200 non-crime hate incidents were recorded by police in the 12 months to June 2024, a similar number to the previous year, despite new guidelines requiring police to investigate only “when it is absolutely necessary and proportionate and not simply because someone is offended”.
A senior police source said that officers were being dragged into taking action on “culture war issues” because they were obliged by the law to record and investigate such complaints. The source argued that the threshold needed to be raised either in law or in guidance or both.”
More than 13,200 non-crime hate incidents were recorded by police in the 12 months to June 2024, a similar number to the previous year, despite new guidelines requiring police to investigate only “when it is absolutely necessary and proportionate and not simply because someone is offended”.
Asked about the concerns about officers policing tweets rather than the streets, Mahmood told the Lords constitution committee: “The police need to focus on the day job and maintaining public confidence for crime in our communities.
“That isn’t to take away from the fact that you can’t commit an offence online,” she said, referring to the difference between inciting violence compared to cases “in the more humour sense end of the spectrum”.
She added: “There is an obvious line there which it shouldn’t, in my personal view, be hard to uphold, and it is important that that is upheld.
“We should be clear that you know, social media is not a sort of a free hit when it comes to breaking the laws of our land, but we have to be absolutely sure that what we do is in accordance with the laws of our land is and is not over-reach either, and that the line is held in the right place and I think that’s what, in the end, maintains public confidence.”
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