'You can't win on stop-and-search', Afro-Caribbean ex-police officer tells LBC
27 October 2020, 17:45 | Updated: 27 October 2020, 17:47
'You can't win on stop-and-search', Afro-Caribbean ex-police officer tells LBC
This is the moment an ex-police officer of Afro-Caribbean descent told LBC the police "can't win" on the issue of stop-and-search.
Sam from Manchester told LBC's Shelagh Fogarty that he understands the concerns of both ethnic minorities who are stopped-and-searched and police officers when it comes to the issue.
The exchange comes as new Home Office figures show that black people are nearly nine times more likely to face stop-and-search by police than white people.
It is a slight drop from 9.5 on the previous year, but the Home Office said searches of all black and ethnic minority groups were still four times higher than those of white people.
Speaking of his policing experience, Sam told LBC: "I'm a former police officer with West Yorkshire and I policed Bradford."
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He added: "When I policed Bradford, you would see a lot of the time officers stopping Asian people more so than white people.
"Now the same can be applied obviously in London. If you're going into areas that are more populated with black people, you tend to stop-and-search more black people."
Responding to his point, Shelagh said: "Even given what you say, if you are a law-abiding black family with black and girls in your family and they are stopped a lot because of what's going on in that area, that's still not just is it? That's still not fair."
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Sam responded: "From a policing perspective, as an officer you've got to justify why you've stopped them. So you've got to give a reason as to why you've stopped that person. Now if that reason isn't justifiable, the person stopped can make a complaint to their superiors.
"From the other side, I'm a minority myself. I'm Afro-Caribbean so I can see it from that point of view as well..."
He later added: "It's one where you can't win and it's a very fine balance."
