The police stop of Labour MP Dawn Butler was ‘rooted in bias’, the head of the National Black Police Association has said.
He added: ‘I would ask why a vehicle being registered in Yorkshire and driving in a global hub like London is enough, by itself, to warrant checking the owner details.
‘The very fact that the officer took the keys from the driver further reinforces the perception that they believed there was something suspicious which may have prompted the driver to make off from them.’ He said it was ‘heartening’ to see the officers speak to Ms Butler ‘respectfully and courteously’ but added that arbitrary stops ‘added to the hurt the black community is currently feeling’.supports HTML5 videoMs Butler agreed that the officers were courteous but said the stop was ‘obviously racial profiling’. She called the Met ‘institutionally racist’ and said the officers’ reason for stopping them was ‘bogus’.
Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Ken Marsh has insisted officers did ‘absolutely nothing wrong’ and had ‘nothing to hide’. Scotland Yard said the stop was a result of an officer having ‘incorrectly entered’ the car’s registration plate into a computer, but did not explain why the search was carried out in the first place., to say that she had ‘no faith’ in Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick’s ability to tackle systemic racism in the force.
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