Police no longer record Twitter spats between neighbours as offences

Under a major crime shake-up by the Home Office, police will no longer record Twitter spats and arguments between neighbours as offences.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, the policing minister Chris Philp said the changes would save officers 443,000 hours a year - equivalent to putting more than 200 officers on the beat for an entire year. The move would stop police wasting time investigating "trivial" reports of people offended by rude text messages or chasing up neighbour disputes which had been settled by the time officers arrived.

Instead, officers would concentrate on investigating complex crimes and supporting victims. Mr Philp said; "Police time is valuable. "I want to see officers chasing criminals and keeping the public safe, not filling in unnecessary forms."

The changes in the way crimes will be recorded are expected to be backed by the Labour Party and have been recommended by the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) as part of a productivity review. 

Police chiefs have complained in the past that changes to the Home Office's "counting rules" – the way offences are recorded – have led to petty disputes, incivility, and double counting of offences which inflated crime rates. However, critics will demand safeguards that these changes do not artificially massage down recorded crime rates.

From next month there will be four major changes to the way offences are recorded:

The first will be the abolition of "double counting" of offences. As already happens with murder, all reported crimes for a single incident will be recorded under the "principal offence" instead of recorded as multiple entries for different offences. This would mean that when a victim was stalked by an offender - who caused criminal damage in the process - the crime of stalking would be recorded and investigated as the principal offence. Similarly, the case of a woman being raped after being harassed or stalked would be recorded as a single offence.

Secondly, officers will also be told they should no longer record "rude" or "offensive" letters, emails, text messages or other communications as crimes - as long as they are not malicious. Mr Philp said; "Creating hurt feelings or offence should not generally be treated as a criminal matter, except in very specific and limited circumstances."

Thirdly, it will no longer be counted as a crime if there is, for example, a public disturbance or a fight between two neighbours which is then resolved by the time the police arrive. At present, this would have to be recorded as a crime if a witness had reported it to the police as a threat of violence.

The final amendment would make it easier for officers to cancel the recording of a crime where there was sufficient evidence that none was committed, with the sign-off required varying depending on the gravity of the offence.

The changes will mean police-recorded crime is likely to fall, however, ministers said the England and Wales crime survey - by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and which measures people's actual experience of offending - will be unaffected. The survey has shown a steady decline in the overall crime rate, a contrast to police-recorded crime which has seen sharp increases - particularly in violence, stalking and harassment and sexual offences.

Chief executive of the College of Policing, Andy Marsh, said: "Officers and staff must be able to maintain high standards and properly record and investigate reported crimes whilst not becoming bogged down in unnecessary bureaucracy."

The former victims' commissioner, Dame Vera Baird, said police needed to tread carefully. She said; "It's quite dangerous to be messing with the accepted way of recording crime unless there is a real fundamental justification for it."