In December, an ex-police officer called Harry Miller won a legal challenge against a national policy permitting forces to record gender-critical views as non-crime “hate incidents”. A brief analysis of the decision and its legal framework may be helpful, particularly to Roman Catholics whose beliefs on a number of moral issues may not conform with general trends in society.
The Humberside Police interviewed Miller in January 2020 after a post-operative transgender woman was offended by his views and complained to the police. The police recorded the Twitter activity as a “hate incident” without any critical scrutiny or assessment of it. Mr Miller brought judicial review proceedings challenging the police recording of the incident and police action, including strongly advising Mr Miller to stop tweeting gender critical messages. The High Court decided in his favour on this. He also challenged the lawfulness of the national guidance on the police recording of non-crime hate incidents, which the High Court rejected.
