Only 3.5 per cent of reports filed in the wake of Scotland’s controversial new hate crime law were for actual crimes, according to police statistics.
Police Scotland’s first figures since the legislation was introduced showed that authorities received 7,152 online hate reports between April 1 and April 7.
But in that first week, only 240 of those thousands of reports had been for actual hate crimes, alongside an additional 30 “non-crime hate incidents”, according to a statement from Police Scotland.
A service spokesperson said: “This data highlights the substantial increase in the number of online hate reports being received since April 1.
“This significant demand continues to be managed within our contact centres and so far the impact on frontline policing, our ability to answer calls and respond to those who need our help in communities across Scotland has been minimal.
“All complaints received are reviewed by officers, supported by dedicated hate crime advisers, and dealt with appropriately, whether that is being progressed for further assessment, or closed as they do not meet the criteria under the legislation.”
Under Scottish law – specifically, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act – an offence is classed as communication or behaviour “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive”.
The law prohibits the incitement of hatred against protected characteristics – race, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity – but not sex.
MORE ON SCOTLAND’S HATE CRIME LAW:
Police Scotland’s frontline officers had said they couldn’t cope with the reports
PA
The thousands of reports filed under the hate crime legislation had led to a slew of criticism – not least from frontline officers, who said they “can’t cope” with the barrage of new complaints.
While the chairman of the Scottish Police Federation David Threadgold warned that the law was being exploited to fuel personal and political vendettas.
Threadgold told the BBC: “One of the biggest challenges that we’ve got in policing at the moment if you accept that the scale and the volume that we have got is simply unmanageable, is that we have not prepared our staff properly.
“We’ve not given them the opportunities to ask the ‘what if’ questions during the training that has been provided by Police Scotland, to interpret this legislation to the satisfaction of the public.”
It also emerged that police officers received just two hours of online training which said had not been adequate to equip them to make difficult judgements around complex issues such as how to balance freedom of speech.
However, a former police officer told the Scottish Daily Mail that her complaint about a Facebook post, which depicts a Nazi swastika within a Star of David, had been dismissed after she was quizzed about her own ethnicity.
She said she had given a statement to police on Saturday but was told that the complaint would not be taken forward because she was not Jewish. Under the legislation, the ethnicity of the complainant does not determine whether a crime had been committed.
GB News’ Nana Akua slammed the policy when it came into force at the start of the month, labelling it “the most ridiculous legislation” and calling for police to focus on “actual crime” instead.
Source Agencies
