Not a police matter

Agroup of bone-headed and frankly sick men in south London thought it a good idea to construct a model of Grenfell Tower and burn it as a Bonfire Night “wheeze”. They filmed their efforts and sent it via a private web chat service to a friend, who inevitably posted it on the internet. The outrage they must have anticipated duly arrived in the form of a so-called twitterstorm. The condemnation was well deserved.

But just a few days after senior police officers said they did not have the resources to deal with serious offences because they were preoccupied with matters that were not crimes, what happened next? The men were arrested, initially for a public order offence. There are now demands that they be charged with a hate crime, although it might be hard to demonstrate it was aimed at the specific groups covered by such legislation.

It goes without saying that this was a vile and despicable thing to do. But once again we are in the realms of inappropriate and unpleasant behaviour being treated as a crime, with all the implications for manpower that entails. The police even searched the house where the bonfire party took place. To what purpose?

Just a mile or so away from where this bonfire was lit, a 16-year-old boy became the latest victim of the spate of fatal stabbings that has gripped the capital this year. Nick Hurd, the Home Office minister, writes on these pages about how complex and demanding modern policing has become. But even so, he says, the police must get the basics right. That, surely, must mean that when they are confronted with asinine stupidity, even bigotry, such as this, the police are able to say they have more important matters to be dealing with.