Scottish hate crime laws will ‘force police to make cuts’
Staff work overtime to deal with volume of complaints as senior officers warn of long-term financial impact
THE Scottish hate crime law will force police to make cuts, senior officers have warned, as staff work overtime to deal with the volume of complaints.
The chairman of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) has warned that the police service will be forced to “not do something” because of the demand being placed on officers. Police Scotland has been inundated with more than 6,000 complaints since the hate crime law took effect on April 1 and control room staff have been paid overtime as they struggle to handle the volume.
David Threadgold, the chairman, said: “At some point in the next financial year, the police service will not do something because of the demand that it’s being placed under now.”
Speaking to The Scotsman, he added: “That will have an impact later on in the year, there’s no doubt about it.”
The SPF has previously warned that the overtime costs incurred as a result of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act would result in a bill for the taxpayer of “hundreds of thousands” of pounds.
Calum Steele, the former general secretary of the SPF until last year, said Police Scotland was “negligently unprepared” for the consequences of the new legislation which is now putting pressure on staff.
Within the first 48 hours of the law coming into effect, Police Scotland had been inundated with 3,000 calls, which officers must work through individually, separating genuine complaints from those Humza Yousaf has termed “vexatious”.
The First Minister himself was the subject of numerous complaints over a 2020 speech in which he pointed out that most senior government and judicial positions in Scotland were white.
He faced renewed opposition ahead of the most recent legislation taking effect, with JK Rowling raising concerns that the law would make describing a transgender person’s biological sex a potentially criminal offence.
The author said she would not refrain from voicing her gender-critical views, which maintain that biological sex cannot be changed because someone identifies as the opposite gender and would be willing to be arrested.
Hours after the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into force on Monday, Rowling posted pictures of 10 high-profile trans people and ridiculed their claims to be women.
Meanwhile, feminisits protesting against new Scottish hate speech laws were abused yesterday by pro-trans activists.
Demonstrators in Edinburgh opposing Humza Yousaf’s new legislation clashed with pro-transgender counter-demonstrators, it wasas claimed.
Pictures from the march show protesters draped in the trans pride flag holding abusive placards.
One sign read “trans dogs bite terfs”. The term terfs is widely used by transgender campaigners to describe women who oppose the view that gender is unfixed and can change according to how people self-identify.