Toddlers’ hate crimes

SIR – Publishing a “hate crime action plan” which “encourages schools and parents to ‘challenge’ incidents in the playground and report them to the police”, Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, says that “Britain is a proud and diverse society” and warns that hate crime has “no place in a 21stcentury Britain” (report, July 26).

The age of criminal responsibility is 10, but children as young as three are now under investigation for “hate crime”, and since it is obvious that such young children cannot be the originators of “hateful” attitudes, the next logical step is for children to report their parents.

Instead of attempting to police attitudes, opinions and beliefs, and inventing a Communist-style spying system, Ms Rudd should concentrate on real crime – but clearly three-yearolds are easier to bully than terrorists.

Ann Farmer Woodford Green, Essex