Mark Duggan case: stop and search could be curbed

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Category: Defence & Security

Created on Friday, 10 January 2014 00:00

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Mark Duggan case: stop and search could be curbed

Home secretary plans to tell police to conduct searches with greater respect and crack down on unlawful use of powers

Vikram Dodd

The home secretary is considering reforms to stop and search, to curtail the damage its use against innocent people inflicts on community relations.

In the aftermath of the controversial verdict of lawful killing in the inquest into Mark Duggan's death, it has emerged that Theresa May is set to tell the police they should carry out fewer stop and searches, to carry them out with greater respect and crack down on officers unlawfully using their powers through ignorance or bias.

The Home Office has recently finished consulting on the use of stop and search, a power that is used disproportionately against ethnic minority Britons, with most searches not leading to an arrest. Government action is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

One plan being considered by May is curtailing the use of section 60, which allows an officer to stop someone without needing reasonable suspicion they are involved in a crime. Some senior officers fear the government may scrap section 60 altogether, but that is thought unlikely.

Research commissioned by the Guardian found ethnic minority Britons were subjected to nearly one-and-a-half million more stop and searches than if the police had treated them the same as white people, between 1999 and 2009. The rate of stop and search against black people during that period also doubled.

One official report found in over a quarter of stops officers did not have reasonable suspicion, as required by legislation, and may not understand their powers.

As police chiefs reacted to the verdict on Thursday yesterday, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said that more needed to be done on stop and search.

"We do have a particular concern about our relationship with younger members of the black community. That's why since I became commissioner I have significantly reduced the use of stop and search. We rarely use the powers [section 60] we have to do blanket searches across an area, and concentrate on searching where we have intelligence to suggest we should."

A Home Office spokesperson said: "Nobody should ever be stopped just on the basis of their skin colour or ethnicity.

"The government supports the ability of police officers to stop and search suspects, but it must be applied fairly and in a way which builds community confidence."

The Met also said it would start trials of firearms officers wearing small video cameras, to boost public confidence and, they hope, make it quicker to prove their officers' accounts are truthful. Police chiefs hope to start testing of the cameras by April.

Leading politicians also yesterday tried to calm tensions following the inquest verdict.

The jury ruled he was lawfully killed by police, despite also ruling that Duggan was not holding a gun when he came face to face with armed Met officers.

David Cameron told the BBC: "We are on a journey. We haven't cracked all these problems. There is still racial prejudice in our country."

The prime minister also praised Duggan's aunt, Carole, who had called for calm. "I very much respect Mark Duggan's aunt for saying they want to pursue their case through the courts rather than on the streets, I think that's absolutely right. These issues raise very strong emotions but I hope people can react calmly and recognise that we have proper judicial processes in this country and they are the ones that must be followed and respected," Cameron said.

The Duggan family, who were infuriated by the jury's findings, appealed for calm as they vowed to fight on, with police promising to build bridges as community leaders described huge levels of hurt caused by the verdict.

The family is are planning a weekend vigil outside Tottenham police station in north London, as police prepare contingencies to deal with any disorder. The shooting of Duggan in August 2011 triggered riots that spread from London to across England.

Claudia Webbe, a member of an independent advisory group on firearms serving the Association of Chief Police Officers, said relationships had now collapsed between police and black Britons.

Webbe, who was a key adviser to the Met's Operation Trident which tackles gun crime in the black community, said: "The relationship between the police and the black community is at an all-time low."

Citing the jury's disbelief of the police claim Duggan had confronted them with a gun, Webbe said: "The police don't come across as believable."

Cheryl Sealey, chair of the Independent Advisory Group for Operation Trident, who was one of the community figures who saw Hogan-Howe today, said of the reaction to the verdict: "It's the worst insult you can get, because he was shot by the police, the jury believed he did not have a gun, then they said he was lawfully killed. People can't understand it. People are devastated and shocked."

[READ: Minorities stopped disproportionally in decade after Macpherson report]

Source: The Guardian UK