If any one body can be said to be at the heart of two-tier policing, it is surely the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC). This police watchdog is largely responsible for some of the most divisive policies in recent UK law enforcement. As a recently retired police officer, I am dismayed by the extent to which the watchdog’s activism has undermined public confidence in policing.
The NPCC’s recent review into the chilling hate-speech investigation of Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson reveals how damaging its influence has become. The review somehow concluded that Essex Police ‘acted reasonably’ when they investigated her for ‘stirring up racial hatred’ over a year-old tweet. Two officers even visited her house on Remembrance Sunday last November to inform her she had been accused of a thoughtcrime. In the offending post, she mistook a group of British Pakistani protesters, who were posing with police officers, for pro-Hamas protesters and called them anti-Semites. She then promptly deleted her tweet once she realised her mistake. Thankfully, Essex Police eventually dropped the case.
Alarmingly, and despite the public outrage the investigation provoked, the NPCC has since announced it believes that Essex Police was right to investigate Pearson. In its review of her case, the NPCC stated that it did ‘not agree with the grounds for cancellation of the crime’. In other words, the police watchdog really thinks that investigating journalists for social-media posts is an appropriate use of the police’s powers.
This is despite the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) chose to close the case against Pearson because there was no realistic prospect of a conviction. Then, Essex Police, when reviewing the CPS decision, concluded that no crime had even been committed in the first place.
The NPCC, however, is adamant that Pearson should have been punished. In its review, it said that ‘we do not take the view that a crime did not take place’. It even praised the police officers for having ‘acted reasonably’ and for their ‘exemplary manner’ when they turned up at her home. It only lamented that they did not take a ‘more active approach’ in criminalising her. The NPCC’s review is a straightforward demand for police to ramp up their policing of speech and interventions into politics.
When it comes to bringing activism into policing, the NPCC has form. In 2023, deputy assistant commissioner Alison Heydari was appointed programme director for the NPCC’s Police Race Action Plan. By her own admission, this plan was prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 and the resultant Black Lives Matter protests. Floyd’s death, while undoubtedly tragic, took place in the US, a country with a vastly different history of interactions between the police and black communities than the UK. Clearly, Heydari’s appointment was an attempt by the policing establishment to align itself with a trendy, identitarian cause.
As a consequence of such narratives being perpetuated by bodies like the NPCC, racial politics is becoming embedded into the criminal-justice system. Just look at the recent Sentencing Council guidance, which recommends preferential treatment for ethnic-, cultural- and faith-minority offenders when it comes to pre-sentencing reports.
Then we come to the NPCC’s enthusiastic support of non-crime hate incidents (or NCHIs), which were introduced by the College of Policing – another ideologically captured policing body. NCHIs have led to police making records of people making offensive jokes or schoolchildren calling each other nasty names. A judge once described the threat they pose to free speech as akin to the ‘Cheka’ or the ‘Stasi’. Yet the NPCC’s chairman, Gavin Stephens, sees no problem with this. At a policing conference last year, he claimed that hate incidents, ‘whether online or in-person’, can cause ‘real damage’ and that it is the job of police to ‘stem the tide of hatred’.
The NPCC’s activism has had significant consequences for the police. It has introduced political bias into what should be an apolitical institution. By taking stances on social and political issues, it is undermining the police’s already waning credibility and alienating the public even further. The perception of partisanship erodes public trust, which is paramount for effective law enforcement.
It also has operational implications. Resources and attention are diverted towards advocacy, and away from the core responsibilities of policing, such as crime prevention, investigation and community safety. Furthermore, officers are pressured to conform to politically driven mandates rather than exercising professional judgement based on the law and established protocols. Those who sensibly exercise their judgement are often overridden.
If the NPCC cannot remain impartial, it must be abolished. Any body that replaces it must avoid bias and stop seeking to curry favour with fashionable opinion. The future of policing depends on it.
Paul Birch is a retired police officer.
