Amber Rudd’s speech to the Conservative party conference has been recorded by police as a “non-crime hate incident” after an Oxford academic made a complaint about its anti-immigrant message.

Prof Joshua Silver made the complaint despite admitting on Thursday that he had not actually heard the Home Secretary’s speech to party supporters in October.

West Midlands Police confirmed its officers had investigated Ms Rudd’s speech after the complaint was made on Jan 1 and found that there was “no evidence of a hate crime being committed”.

A source said the allegation was “reported and it was looked into by officers”. Prof Silver’s complaint about Ms Rudd's speech will now be recorded in official statistics as a “non-crime hate incident”.