‘I have been stopped and searched by police’
Leon Lynch, a criminal barrister, reveals the discrimination he has faced all his life
‘This isn’t a UK issue, it’s an American one.” This is something that I’ve heard a lot in response to the protests that spread across the Atlantic to London this week. I couldn’t disagree more.
I am a 31-year-old black man, a criminal barrister and a father of two, and I have faced discrimination in the UK for my whole life.
Many believe that because we are fortunate enough not to see police officers killing black people on a weekly basis in the UK, we do not have an issue. Yet discrimination exists on a gradient: at the darker end are explicitly racist killings like George Floyd’s; at the other, microaggressions and unlawful stop and search.
I have been stopped and searched by police seven times. On the first occasion, I was 14 years old, walking home in my school uniform. The police stopped and searched me and my black friends for weapons, while my white friends watched on.
In my last encounter, I was detained by armed officers on my local high street. They said I had a firearm in my possession, but found law books instead.
They refused to release me and focused their attention on a hammer I was taking to do DIY at my fiancée’s. The officers rejected my account and
‘At the Old Bailey, a lawyer came up and asked my colleague: “What’s he up for?”’
arrested me in connection with a burglary – they had decided that I was a problem and created a narrative to fit.
A worrying number of police officers do not understand the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, which details an officer’s legal principles required to carry out a stop and
search. I make a point of challenging officers on the law but I’m concerned for those who are less articulate or confident in doing so. There is no reason you should be able to remember statutes off by heart, to feel free to walk the streets.
The stereotypes that persist about people of colour are evident at the bar. Earlier in my career, I was in court at the Old Bailey with a colleague, when another lawyer approached us and asked: “What’s he up for?”
He assumed that a young, black man in court must be the defendant. He didn’t even have the decency to address me directly. It happened again the very next day.
The criminal bar is an extremely white, middle-class profession. Unfortunately, people who look like me are over-represented as defendants, which means many are represented by people who don’t have the same life experiences as them.
However, there are a few great schemes, such as Urban Lawyers, which are seeking to redress this balance and encourage a more diverse group of people to coming to the bar.
Tiny, insidious bits of racism really get under your skin, over time. I’ll be told that I’m loitering when I’m walking through a public space. I live in a predominantly white area of east London, and have felt the glare of suspicion on my own street – people might give a double take, or hold their bags closer to their chest. I doubt they even know they’re doing it; it’s so ingrained.
Recently, Kemi Badenoch MP commented that the UK is one of the best places to live as a black person. She’s right. The UK experiences less violence than places like the US, but that doesn’t mean that we’re exempt from criticism or can afford to be complacent.
It all comes back to that gradient of racism: just because an officer hasn’t got his knee in my neck, doesn’t mean there’s no issue. In fact, I know there’s racism in the House of Commons – my aunt is Diane Abbott MP and I have heard from her the racist abuse she has received, even in her place of work.
I have two daughters, who are two and 11 months old. I grew up being told about the history of racism, about the race riots in the Sixties in the US and in the Eighties here.
I thought that by the time I had my own children that that would be in a distant memory. But here we are, in 2020, and the problem is still not fixed.