Stop-and-Search Extended After Police’s Hands ‘Tied for Political Reasons’

Police in London in an undated file photo. The Home Office is permanently easing restrictions on the use of police stop-and-search tactics. Victoria Jones/PA

The Home Secretary Priti Patel has lifted restrictions on police stop-and-search powers as part of a new initiative against violent crime in England and Wales.

Patel wrote to police forces in England and Wales, permanently lifting limitations on Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which enables them to stop people and search them for weapons.

The limitations were imposed in 2014 by then-Home Secretary Theresa May, who later became prime minister.

Mike Neville, a retired detective chief inspector who spent 28 years in the Metropolitan Police, told The Epoch Times, “The police’s hands were tied for political reasons by Theresa May because she thought she might get more votes from the black community and the end result was that more young black men were put at risk.”

Section 60 orders are often imposed on small geographical areas in the wake of gang violence and give officers the right to search people without needing to have “reasonable grounds” in order to search for weapons that might be about to be used in retaliatory attacks.

The length of time a Section 60 order can be put in force is being increased from 15 to 24 hours and they can be extended to 48 hours, up from 39 hours.

The rank needed to authorise the deployment of stop-and-search has been dropped from senior officer to inspector and superintendents will now be able to authorise extensions.

Police outside the Arndale Centre after a stabbing incident at the shopping center that left five people injured, in Manchester, England, on Oct. 11, 2019. Peter Byrne/PA via AP

The wording has also been changed so that the justification is now the fear that serious violence “may” happen, rather than “will” happen.

Patel said: “The devastating impact of knife crime on families who have lost their loved one is unbearable. No one should have to endure the pain and suffering of the victims of these appalling crimes and we have a responsibility to them to do everything in our power to prevent future tragedies.”

Stop-and-searches have increased by 85 percent since 2019, and 50,000 weapons have been seized during that time.

Launch of Operation Sceptre

May 16 also sees the start of Operation Sceptre, a week of “intensive action” by police to tackle knife crime.

Police will also be able to impose Serious Violence Reduction Orders following the passing of the Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Act last month.

The Metropolitan Police’s Violent Crime Taskforce has taken 3,148 knives off the streets since it was launched and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said this week: “I’m determined to continue being tough on crime and tough on the complex causes of crime. Thanks to record investment from City Hall, the Violent Crime Taskforce has removed more than 3,000 knives and 2,000 other weapons from our streets and has helped to deliver an 11 percent drop in knife crime with injury and a 30 percent drop in gun crime since May 2016.”

Stop-and-search continues to provoke controversy with black community leaders and MPs accusing the police of targeting young people unfairly.

Black People Seven Times More Likely to Be Searched

A recent report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IPOC) urged an overhaul of Section 60 and pointed out that in the year to March 2021, black people were seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people.

The IPOC highlighted the case of one black youth who was searched more than 60 times between the ages of 14 and 16.

But Mike Neville said: “You can’t analyse stop-and-search figures without looking at the crime figures. Black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched but black people are five or six times more likely to be the victims of crime, or the perpetrators.”

In September 2021 four young black gang members—Muhammad Jalloh, 19, Vagnei Colubali, 23, David Ture, 19, and Alex Melaku, 18—were jailed for life for murdering David Gomoh, an NHS worker, during a “ride out” into enemy gang territory in Newham, east London.

An undated handout of a sketch of the murder of David Gomoh, found in the bedroom of gang member David Ture, and released by police in August 2021. Metropolitan Police

The trial heard that Gomoh was an entirely innocent man who was targeted by the gang simply because he fitted the profile for a gang member in their rivals’ patch.

Ture had drawn a child-like sketch of the attack, which was found in his bedroom.

Gangs ‘Taboo Subject’

Neville said: “Too many people are making careers out of criticising stop-and-search. What they should be doing is confronting the gangs ... but they’re a taboo subject.”

Neville said those who used political correctness to reduce stop-and-search were “despicable” and he said too many people were willing to lambast the police but unwilling to criticise the gangs which devastated black communities.

He said: “The black community have been let down by their leaders and their MPs. They should stop blaming other people and say ‘What is going on? Why are our young people dying?’”

Neville also criticised the courts for handing out lenient sentences for knife crime.

He pointed out the case of 18-year-old Joshua Gardner, who was initially given a suspended sentence after being filmed using a zombie knife in the street in Croydon, south London. The attorney general referred the case to the Court of Appeal which, in January 2019, replaced it with a jail sentence of three-and-a-half years.