The Police Race

The British Police is no stranger to abuse during arrests, detention in the cells and in day-to-day conduct. According to the rules, the Police can conduct a stop-and-search only if they have 'reasonable suspicion' on facts and intelligence, that the suspect is committing or about to commit a crime.

But a recent Home Office Select Committee said that the Police had made ‘tremendous strides' but a 'blatantly disproportionate' number of black people continue to be stopped and searched.

The Metropolitan Police are also no stranger to racial abuse. Last year alone there were nearly a hundred of complaints against the Police on the grounds of racial abuse. Indeed, Metropolitan Police Authority figures show that on average, blacks are at least four times as likely to be stopped and searched as whites in London. Racial abuse is common in almost each and every Police authority in Britain.

Among the well known racial abuse cases the matter of Ken Hinds is exceptional. Hinds a charismatic youth outreach worker who has helped hundreds of criminally involved young gagsters to come out clean even received a commendation from the Metropolitan Police for his 'courage, tenancy and dedication' in tracking knife crime. He once acted as an advisor to the Metropolitan Police. But he himself became a victim of Police abuse and harassment which led to him being stopped and searched in the street, at tube stations and shopping malls by the Police more than 100 times during past 20 years.

False arrest

Once he was arrested and held for four hours at a Police station on suspicion that the car he was driving was a stolen one. It was an old Audi and was his car. Once he was arrested and detained for using a train ticket before the validity time. Here there are some train and bus tickets which can be used only after 9.30 am. He bought one before that time bracket and tried using it triggering his arrest.

Racial abuse

But he received Sterling Pounds 22,000 as compensation from British Transport Police for false arrest and malicious imprisonment. Hind says that the Police have taken years of his life. “Friend told me: walk away and get on with your life, you will never beat the Police.

“But I couldn’t because not only Police wrongfully arrested me but they also lied and tried to cover it up. They said the officers were inexperienced but that’s not the case. They were malicious”

Acceptable reasons for an arrest include a person’s behaviour that suggests the suspect is carrying drugs or a weapon. Searches without the need to prove suspicion are allowed under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. There is no white van culture in the UK. But there were incidents where the finger of accusation pointed at the authorities.

One of them was the suicide of Dr. David Kelly who died under suspicious circumstances nine years ago. It was a lengthy story and should be discussed separately.

An inspector of the Metropolitan Police had been arrested last Monday in North London with regard to racial abuse. The Directorate of Professional Standards and the Independent Police Complaints Commission have already begun their investigations on the incident. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said, “A male officer was arrested on suspicion of a Section 4 Public Order Act offence (racially aggravated words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress),” a spokesman said.

“He is at present on Police bail and has been suspended from duties pending the outcome of the criminal investigation.”

The case of PC Alex MacFarlane, 52, who will face criminal charges after being accused of racially abusing a suspect during last summer riots is about to go to the dock. The alleged incident was recorded on a mobile phone.

He will appear before magistrates in May charged with a public order offence. Last week, black fire-fighter Edric Kennedy-Macfoy, 28, claimed he was assaulted by a group of Police officers because of his skin colour. Kennedy-Macfoy, who has lodged an official complaint, also said he was insulted and arrested without good cause when he went to assist the six policemen while off-duty as they were dealing with a disturbance last September.

UK is a place where there is zero tolerance for racial abuse. Whoever, whatever the position of the person involved in racial abuse he will not get away with it.

Frankly, I have not experienced any racial abuse openly during the past 27 years in London by a white man but by a black man who asked me for cigarettes at Kings Cross underground station.