Police must use common sense to decide what is a crime and what's offensive, the policing watchdog Sir Andy Cooke has told Sky News.

Doing so would help lift continuing low public confidence in the police , which he said had dropped markedly in the past five years.

He hit out after the wide condemnation of comedy writer Graham Linehan's arrest , publicly, by five armed officers for tweeting messages about trans issues, which allegedly incited violence.

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Graham Linehan arrested at Heathrow

Sir Andy, the chief inspector of constabulary, said: "For me, non-crime hate incidents are no longer required, and they can be dealt with differently.

"I'm not saying it's not wrong to actually use that language, but is it

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