The investigation of comedy writer Graham Linehan has collapsed so comprehensively London’s police say they will no longer now investigate so-called ‘Non-Crime Hate Incidents’ (NCHIs) at all.
The Free Speech Union hailed a “tremendous victory” as London’s Metropolitan Police announced the time of their officers will no longer be used investigating NCHIs, saying this would free up their force’s time to investigate actual crimes.
Yet the Union warns the battle goes on, as police didn’t say they’d stop recording NCHIs. This is significant because despite there being no criminal process, no opportunity to be cleared in court, and no process to have them struck off, NCHIs nevertheless are recorded on the police computer next to the names of individuals, and show up when potential employers request a background check.
The Free Speech Union said in their response: “This is a tremendous victory, but the war is not yet over.
“We now have to make sure all the other police forces in the UK follow in the Met’s footsteps and they all now stop recording NCHIs, including the Met, in a way that means they can show up in enhanced DBS checks and prevent you from getting a job as a teacher or a carer. No one should be prevented from getting a job because they’ve committed a ‘non-crime’.”
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 2025/09/04: Members of the Free Speech Union hold a ‘Police our streets, not our Tweets’ banner as Graham Linehan arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court for his trial. The comedy writer, best known for TV shows Father Ted and The IT Crowd, is accused of harassing a transgender woman and damaging her phone. (Photo by Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The Metropolitan Police said, for their part, that they shouldn’t policing “toxic culture war debates” and that the new guidance reduces ambiguity, leaving officers free to “focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations”.
Having an NCHI entered against an individual’s name can take as little as having a single tweet reported to police. And indeed, the case which brought down the system — the pursuit of Irish comedian Graham Linehan by the Metropolitan police — was over his gender critical social media posts.
The arrest of the Father Ted and IT Crowd writer garnered headlines worldwide and saw criticism heaped on the United Kingdom for perceived backsliding on basic freedom of expression rights. Initially, Linehan had been arrested at a London airport and handed initial bail conditions so wide-ranging he couldn’t even post online.
These conditions were challenged by the Free Speech Union and later dropped, with a judge ruling the police-imposed bail had been “meaningless”.
But still the investigation against Linehan continued until today, when Police announced they were dropping their inquiry into him, and all other such work. Linehan said: “With the aid of the Free Speech Union, I still aim to hold the police accountable for what is only the latest attempt to silence and suppress gender critical voices on behalf of dangerous and disturbed men.”
While Linehan’s case may be the best known and most widely-discussed of the NCHI incidents, Breitbart London has been reporting on the authoritarian list-making for many years. The number of so-called NCHIs has soared and in some cases have been used as a pretext for officers to visit members of the public to give them “advice” on social media use, even though no crime had been committed.
Even journalists have been targeted, with veteran conservative writer Alison Pearson having her home visited on Remembrance Sunday last year. Remarkably, officers refused to tell her on what grounds they had invited themselves to her home and when she asked who her acuser was, police corrected her by noting that person was being treated as the “victim”.
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