Police chief hits out at people who report 'fluff and nonsense' (2025)

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Police should stop wasting their time investigating ‘guff’ and tell people reporting ‘fluff and nonsense’ on social media to ‘grow up’, one of Britain’s top chiefs has said.

Stephen Watson, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police believes officers should not be detaining people for using ‘tasty language’ online and suggested the public lose confidence in police when forces are ‘pontificating on social media issues’ like gender identity.

The leader of one of Britain's biggest police forces spoke out after another force came under fire for arresting parents who complained about their child's school on a WhatsApp group.

Last month it emerged that six officers from Hertfordshire Police had arrested two parents in Borehamwood who complained about their daughter's school on a private group.

The force later discontinued the case due to lack of evidence.

But Mr Watson told Times Radio: ‘I, like the rest of the public, I'll see an image of half a dozen officers turned up to what is apparently a perfectly innocuous thing.

‘It might be that people have used tasty language online but it's not unlawful and it's not actually for the police to involve themselves. So, of course one is concerned.’

Mr Watson stressed that police should investigate all reports of crime, but quickly tell people reporting ‘fluff and nonsense’ to ‘grow up’.

He said officers need to stop dealing with ‘guff’ after a number of high-profile cases of people being arrested for minor infractions have caused outrage.

In February, the Metropolitan Police arrested six female supporters of Youth Demand, an activist group, at a Quaker meeting house in London, before later releasing the suspects without charge.

Mr Watson added: ‘The officers don't necessarily know in advance of visiting that, actually, this is all going to come to mean a load of guff that ought never to have been touched by the police.’

He said: ‘Those process-type systems ought to be capable of differentiating between, yes, taking reports seriously, reacting appropriately, looking after the public and also being able to have the confidence to say, “That is guff, it's not for the police, let's speak to whomsoever reported it and candidly tell them to grow up”.’

In a wide-ranging interview, he was also critical of police getting caught up in issues of ‘critical race theory and gender identity- inflamed by social and political activists.’

The outspoken chief, whose back-to-basics approach has transformed his force’s approach to crime, claims officers should concentrate on what is important to victims.

He said: ‘If we are seen to be pontificating on social media issues, we lose the public.’

When he took over in the summer of 2021, Greater Manchester Police had been placed in ‘special measures’ after failing to record 80,000 crimes and emergency 999 response times were the worst in the country.

Now Mr Watson says every crime is investigated and emergency response times are among the best in England and Wales

Last year Mr Watson declared that policing is not about ‘going down all manner of contemporary rabbit holes,’ and responding to woke causes on social media.

‘Whether it be through adulterating the uniform with pins and badges and having all manner of florid social media accounts – these are all things that I don’t think have a place in policing,’ he concluded.

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