Met chief asked: Is it a hate crime?

SCOTLAND Yard chief Cressida Dick last night admitted asking 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 that 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, I can tell you that my preliminary view having spoken to them is that what Mr Johnson said would not reach the bar for a criminal offence. He did not commit a criminal offence.’

The police and Crown Prosecution Service define a hate crime as ‘any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice’, which could be based on religion.