Gangs a bigger threat to black men than police, says Trevor Phillips

THE “greatest danger” to young black men is gangs not the police, Trevor Phillips has claimed, as he urged people not to compare Britain’s problems to the racial tensions in America.

Speaking in the wake of the Black Lives Matter campaign, the former chairman of Britain’s equalities watchdog warned that hundreds of youngsters were dying every year due to gang-related crime. Appearing on the latest episode of The Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast, Mr Phillips, 66, said there was “clearly a problem” with the Government’s stop and search policy.

Discussing his own experiences, he said it was “absurd” that as a man in his 40s he had been pulled over while driving, describing it as “humiliating”.

He said that “people of colour, particularly black men, are more likely to be stopped and likely to be stopped in a way that is not courteous, that is not founded in some proper crime-fighting activity”. His comments come after two British athletes were stopped and handcuffed by police near their west London home. Their trainer, Linford Christie, Britain’s most successful Olympic sprinter, said the incident showed “racist police aren’t just in America”.

But Mr Phillips warned against comparisons with police in the US, arguing that black people in the UK are “not as separated” and the UK has the highest proportion of “black-white mixed race children anywhere in the world”.

Asked whether he agreed with Kevin Hurley, a former Scotland Yard chief, who recently said stop and search was primarily aimed at preventing “blackon-black” crime, Mr Phillips added: “There is absolutely no doubt that if you are thinking about what is the greatest danger today to a young black man in the capital, the answer is not the police, it’s somebody else in a gang.

“That person is very likely to be a person of colour. While we have to get the police to do the right thing and behave in the right way, let us not forget that young black men are dying in hundreds every year.”

He also took a thinly-veiled swipe at some media outlets. “The reason it is so difficult for anybody to talk about [black on black crime] is because the media is dominated by white people,” he said, “and particularly by a white liberal consciousness that is consumed by guilt. Almost anything to do with black people must involve them – reporters, editors – showing us how much they care about black people. It just astonishes me.”

 The Independent Office for Police Conduct is to use its formal powers to investigate whether police forces in England and Wales discriminate against ethnic minorities. The inquiry will also examine whether BAME people are being failed as victims of crime, according to The Guardian. Download the Planet Normal podcast at telegraph.co.uk