LIB DEMS CHALLENGE MET CHIEF ON RANK AND FILE VIEWS ON STOP AND SEARCH POWERS

12.01.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 30th Sep 2004

At a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority later today, Liberal Democrat Lynne Featherstone, will put to Met Police Chief, Sir John Stevens, disturbing views about the implementation of challenge Recommendation 61 of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry on stop and search practice recently expressed by a Met PC, and seek his assurance that they are not widespread amongst rank and file officers.

Recommendation 61, which is rolled out London-wide on Friday, requires a record of any stop which includes the reason for the stop, the outcome, and the self-defined ethnic identity of the person concerned to be given to the person stopped. Ms Featherstone will also express strong concerns that the vast majority of officers have yet to be trained to implement this recommendation.

In a recent letter to Jane's Police Review a serving Met Police Constable writes:-

"I will not be accounting for my reasons for any stops, as I do not have to. The section on reasons for the action on my stop forms will be blank, as I do not require grounds to get someone to account for themselves. As a constable, I feel I should be able to speak to people as I see fit and exercise my powers as I deem necessary in the circumstances…" (full copy of the letter text can be found below)

Lib Dem member of the MPA, Lynne Featherstone, said:

"Serious questions must be asked of the Met that the type of attitude displayed in this letter is not part of a wider malaise within rank and file Met officers towards improving the way stops and searches are undertaken.

"If stop and search powers are not to be brought into disrepute, it is vital that all police officers see the value of informing those stopped and searched of the reasons for it. The Met must be confident that the rank and file of the police see Recommendation 61 as a positive step in improving police and community relations, and not a negative one that increases bureaucracy.

"Unless something is done urgently to address the attitudes of officers like the author of this letter, Londoners will continue to mistrust the use of 'stop and search', and the power itself will remain that much more open to abuse."

ENDS

Notes to editor

The meeting of the Met Police Authority will take place in Meeting Room 1 (ground floor), 10 Dean Farrar Street, London SW1 on Thursday, 30 September 2004 at 10.00 a.m.

On Friday 1st October 2004, Recommendation 61 of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry is to be implemented across London. It states:-

"61. That the Home Secretary, in consultation with Police Services, should ensure that a record is made by police officers of all "stops" and "stops and searches" made under any legislative provision (not just the Police and Criminal Evidence Act). Non-statutory or so called "voluntary" stops must also be recorded. The record to include the reason for the stop, the outcome, and the self-defined ethnic identity of the person stopped. A copy of the record shall be given to the person stopped."

• In a letter from the 3rd September of Jane's Police Review, a Police Constable in the Met wrote:-

Len Duvall, Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, believes officers recording all stops will make them more accountable and less hostile to young Londoners.

I will not be accounting for my reasons for any stops, as I do not have to. The section on reasons for the action on my stop forms will be blank, as I do not require grounds to get someone to account for themselves. As a constable, I feel I should be able to speak to people as I see fit and exercise my powers as I deem necessary in the circumstances. In my opinion, the issue of whether all stops should be recorded should be put to a public vote. I am certain that Londoners do not want me to waste valuable patrol time filling out forms for non-crime incidents while anti-social behaviour increases.

If Mr Duvall wants to see 'hostile' behaviour, I suggest that he joins me on a late shift and witness at first-hand packs of youths harassing law-abiding elderly residents. The mere 'stopping' of these youths and subsequent filling out of forms will take me off patrol for more than an hour (10 youths at seven minutes a form).