Harry Miller

Harry Miller, former police officer and founder of the campaigning group Fair Cop, examines the College of Policing’s Hate Crime Guidance and the recording of “non-crime hate incidents” in England and Wales. He explains how, since 2014, any perceived hostility can be logged against a person with no evidence required, creating secret records that may surface in background checks and damage employment prospects. Miller traces the policy’s origins to the Macpherson Report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, intended as a means of gathering community intelligence, and argues that it has been distorted into a tool for policing speech, thoughts and online expression rather than actual crime. Drawing on his own High Court victory, in which a judge likened police conduct to that of the Stasi, Cheka and Gestapo, and his subsequent Court of Appeal challenge, he contends that the guidance inverts justice by offering greater protections to those accused of crimes than to those accused of mere “incidents.” Miller further criticises the adoption of gender-identity ideology by police bodies, including threats issued by official LGBT accounts against women who object to male-bodied athletes in female sport, and describes Fair Cop’s strategy of public accountability and reciprocal naming until forces return to impartial law enforcement.