RACE equality chiefs are to meet the chief constable of Thames Valley Police over ‘disproportionate’ searches of Wycombe ethnic minorities.

Wycombe Race Equality Council leaders asked for the meeting for next month over questions about the stops.

Figures show 45 per cent of stop and searches in Wycombe district were amongst ethnic minorities, which make up 13 per cent of the population.

Of those, 5.5 per cent were arrested. This was 7.9 per cent for those who are not from an ethnic minority, according to the figures, for April 2009 to February this year.

Chief constable Sara Thornton accepted this was too low (see link, bottom of story). Wycombe’s top policeman has pledged to keep a ‘close eye’ on the issue.

John Barlow, chairman of WREC, said; “There is a lot of concern but we need to be very careful how we look at the figures.”

“What is worrying is the disproportionally.”

Yet he said he was concerned a higher proportion of ethnic minorities were being stopped, despite falling numbers of overall stops.

He said: “I do believe that the overall numbers stopped is on the decline but this is at the expense of the black and ethnic minorities.”

Figures show Bucks minority stop and searches rose from 28 to 30 per cent between 2007 and 2010 but fell amongst non-minorities from 63 to 59 per cent.

Stop and account incidents – where people are stopped and asked what they are doing – rose from 18 to 26 per cent amongst minorities and fell from 73.5 to 70 per cent in others.

The national Equalities and Human Rights Commission named the force as having amongst the highest levels of ‘disproportionate’ stops, which it called for an end to.

Mr Barlow said this had not taken into separate stop and account actions.

And last week the European Court of Human Rights upheld its ruling that random stop and searches are illegal. These 'section 44' searches were used 20 times in Wycombe, the latest figures show.

Other searches were carried out under section one of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

Force guidance says people can only otherwise be stopped and searched with ‘good reason’, such as suspected drugs or weapons.

Wycombe police commander Supt Gilbert Houalla said: “The disproportionate use of stop and search is a very important issue to me, and I myself am from an ethnic background.

“Since becoming area commander for Wycombe, I have regularly stressed to my officers that stop and search should be intelligence-led, and it is an issue I intend to keep a close eye on in the future.”

The district had seen a ‘tremendous’ fall in crime of 24, per cent, he said.

He said: “This success was attained by managing our persistent offenders and crime hot-spots, many of which are in areas where as many as four in ten people are from ethnic minority backgrounds.

“Any control measures in these areas, will inevitably involve stopping people from ethnic minorities.

“Often when we stop people, it is the result of reported crime where a member of the public has given a description of a suspect. “We are, therefore, making intelligence-led stops and searches on anyone who matches the given description.”

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