Misuse of stop and search is ‘unacceptable’ says Lord Carlile

The overuse of stop and search powers are damaging the credibility of terrorism laws and are being needlessly used to balance racial statistics, a review of anti-terror laws has shown.
In his annual report on the Terrorism Act 2000 and Part 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006, Lord Carlile of Berriew QC said that police were using stop and search laws against people who were not even suspected of being a terrorist.
He warned that the “poor and unnecessary” use of special powers which give police officers the ability to stop individuals without having “reasonable suspicion”, severely damaged the credibility of the law.
“I repeat my mantra that terrorism-related powers should be used only for terrorism-related purposes; otherwise their credibility is severely damaged. The damage to community relations if they are used incorrectly can be considerable,” the report states.
Lord Carlile said that the blanket use of searches under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 failed to show potential to prevent a terror attack and that he could see no reason for the whole of Greater London to be permanently designated for the use of the power.
“If there is a single issue that can be identified as giving rise to most assertions of excessive and disproportionate police action, it is the use of Section 44,” Lord Carlile wrote.
He recommended that chief officers should ask themselves “very carefully” if the use of Section 44 is really necessary and that a review should be conducted at least once a year to assess the “ambit and utility of Section 44 use in his/her police force area during the previous year”.
He added that no chief officer should expect approval of a rolling 28-day authorisation for the whole of their police force area, “save in exceptional circumstances”.
Also in the report, he draws attention to evidence that people are being stopped by police in order to ensure a racial balance for the official statistics.
“I believe that it is totally wrong for any person to be stopped in order to produce a racial balance in the Section 44 statistics. There is ample anecdotal evidence that this is happening,” he said.
While he said he understood that police were anxious to ensure they would not suffer from allegations of prejudice, unmerited searches were a waste of resources.
“I can well understand the concerns of the police that they should be free from allegations of prejudice; but it is not a good use of precious resources if they waste them on self-evidently unmerited searches. It is also an invasion of the civil liberties of the person who has been stopped, simply to ‘balance’ the statistics. The criteria for Section 44 stops should be objectively based, irrespective of racial considerations: if an objective basis happens to produce an ethnic imbalance, that may have to be regarded as a proportional consequence of operational policing,” he states.
Lord Carlile called on chief police officers to always bear in mind that a stop under Section 44 is an invasion of a person’s freedom of movement.
“It is important that the police use counter-terrorism legislation proportionately and maintain public confidence that they are not over-reacting,” he stated.
He criticised the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), which performed 90 per cent of the stops in 2007/08, for not limiting Section 44 use only to parts of London and said the number of searches being carried out by the force was “alarming”.
Recently, however, the use of stop and search powers has been limited within the capital.
He said: “The intention of the section was not to place London under permanent special search powers.
“The figures, and a little analysis of them, show that section 44 is being used as an instrument to aid non-terrorism policing on some occasions and this is unacceptable.”
A Home Office spokesman defended the use of the powers. He said: “Stop and search under the Terrorism Act 2000 is an important tool in the ongoing fight against terrorism.
“As part of a structured anti-terrorist strateg