Met chief: I asked if it was hate crime

SCOTLAND Yard chief Cressida Dick has admitted she asked officers to investigate whether Boris Johnson’s remarks had broken the law.

Miss Dick, Britain’s most senior police officer, said that having discussed the matter with colleagues she did not believe the former foreign secretary had committed an offence.

Despite not receiving any criminal complaint, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner said her staff had looked at whether the comments about Muslim women wearing the burka amounted to a hate crime. Asked what she made of the language

used by Mr Johnson, Miss Dick told the BBC Asian Network: ‘Some people have clearly found it offensive. I also know that many other people believe strongly that in the whole of the article, what Mr Johnson appears to have been attempting to do was say there shouldn’t be a ban and that he was engaging in a legitimate debate.’

She added: ‘I spoke last night to my very experienced officers who deal with hate crime and, although we have not yet received any allegation of such a crime... my preliminary view... (is that) he did not commit a criminal offence.’