Black MP tells how police 'frisked and groped' him as shock report shows stop and search 'racism'

The "fear and embarrassment" of being stopped has stayed with David Lammy ever since. [Photo, Courtesy]

The practice of stop and search is ineffectual and racially unjust, MP David Lammy has said, as he recounted his own childhood experiences of being searched by police.

The Labour politician told how he was "frisked, groped and harassed by the police" as he walked through Tottenham, north London, at the age of 12, as officers told him he matched the description of a mugger.

The "fear and embarrassment" of being stopped for a crime he did not commit has stayed with him ever since, he said.

He added: "The reality was that they could not tell one black boy from another."

His comments come after a new report found that black people in England and Wales are almost nine times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched for drugs.

The results represent "a profound racial injustice", Mr Lammy said.

Writing in The Observer, he said: "Grounded in the fictitious narrative that drug use is especially prevalent among black and minority ethnic groups, the current practice of stop and search entertains a racist fantasy.

"As we speak, there will be young, white middle-class men smoking a joint at a campus university or having cocaine delivered to their dinner parties, but the police will be nowhere in sight."

He added: "Instead of relying on this ineffectual and racially unjust practice, we must stop stigmatising black men and search for more intelligent, long-term solutions to the problems that foster criminal activity in the first place."

The joint study by the Stopwatch coalition, drug law experts Release and the London School of Economics and Political Science found that by 2016/17, black people were stopped and searched at 8.7 times the rate of white people for drugs, and 7.9 times the rate of white people for other offences.

The report also found that black people were treated more harshly when found in possession of drugs.

In the year to March 2017, police in England and Wales carried out 303,845 stops and searches, the lowest number since current data records started in 2001/02.

Reforms were introduced in 2014 by then home secretary Theresa May to ensure the powers are used in a more targeted way.

But while arrests for drugs as a result of stop and search fell by 52% for white people between 2010/11 and 2016/17, they did not fall at all for black people, the report said.