‘Rough haircut’ logged by City of London Police as hate incident

City of London Police recorded a hatred ailment from a antheral who claimed helium had been fixed a dodgy haircut.

The Lithuanian said his barber was “aggressive and rough” due to the fact that helium spoke Russian, The Sun reports.

It was 1 of 13,000 non-crime hatred incidents recorded by UK constabulary forces successful the twelvemonth to June.

A tempest continues implicit whether guidance astir NCHIs is being misapplied aft Essex Police dropped its lawsuit against Telegraph writer Allison Pearson for alleged incitement of radical hatred implicit a year-old deleted station online.

“The unfortunate believes this was due to the fact that helium spoke Russian and is simply a hatred incident.”

A City of London Police spokesperson told the Standard: “The study was made online and aboriginal withdrawn. The barber was not spoken to.”

Chief constables basal accused of wasting clip and undermining nationalist assurance by probing trivial matters amid surging convulsive crime, shoplifting and mobile telephone snatching.

Similar cases saw officers successful Cambridgeshire called to a German pistillate offended by being compared to a rottweiler successful a parking quality with a neighbour.

Essex Police logged 96 NCHIs successful a year, including 1 wherever the “suspect has told 2 men to halt kissing”.

The Wiltshire unit investigated an incidental wherever a idiosyncratic successful the thoroughfare said others were mocking the magnitude of their hair.

Bedfordshire officers probed a antheral for “racial hatred” for whistling the Bob the Builder tune astatine his neighbour successful 2021.

A idiosyncratic successful South Yorkshire said they were the unfortunate of homophobic maltreatment successful a enactment implicit a privet hedge erstwhile a neighbour called him a “Leonard”.

In West Yorkshire, a disabled Blue Badge parking licence holder claimed Facebook posts referred to her being physically active.

Colleagues successful the aforesaid unit logged an incidental wherever a parent said her son’s swimming teacher had allowed him to bang his caput against the broadside of a excavation “due to ethnicity”.

Officers person besides recorded NCHIs against children arsenic young arsenic nine, including 1 who called a chap superior schoolhouse pupil a “retard” and against 2 schoolgirls who said different smelt “like fish”.

Shadow location caput Chris Philp said: “The constabulary should not discarded immoderate invaluable clip connected incidents similar this. There is plentifulness of existent transgression they should beryllium preventing and solving.

“An aggressively-administered haircut is not a constabulary matter.

“The constabulary should lone walk clip investigating oregon signaling existent transgression allegations oregon incidents wherever determination is simply a existent and imminent hazard of criminality subsequently occurring.

“The Government needs to urgently update the guidance to guarantee this is the case.

“This nonsense undermines assurance successful policing.”

Telegraph columnist Ms Pearson said she was wearing her dressing gown erstwhile she was spoken to by 2 constables who knocked connected her doorway successful Saffron Walden, Essex connected Remembrance Sunday.

News of the sojourn sparked a backlash, including from erstwhile Conservative premier ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, who some called the incidental “appalling”, and X proprietor Elon Musk.

Essex Police person closed their probe connected Thursday and an autarkic reappraisal volition beryllium launched into the force’s handling of the case.

Gavin Stephens, president of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said officers indispensable analyse NCHIs truthful they bash not miss “precursors to violence”.

In September, watchdog His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary recovered that constabulary are signaling and attending excessively galore of them and not consistently applying nationalist guidance.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said officers should follow “a communal consciousness and accordant approach”.