Police blast back in MP racism row
My officers suffered trial by social media, says Met chief
A SCOTLAND YARD chief has defended police officers who stopped a car carrying a black Labour MP, saying they could not see who was in it because it had tinted windows.
Dawn Butler, former Labour equalities spokesman, accused the Metropolitan Police of racial profiling and posted footage of the incident on Twitter.
But Deputy Commissioner Sir Steve House yesterday backed the officers after they faced ‘trial by social media’ and said he would have done the same thing had he been in their position.
The officers had not known the ethnicity of the car’s occupants when they made the stop because they could not see through the tinted glass, he added. ‘The increasingly routine trial by social media is unfair and damaging to individual officers and has the potential to undermine the role our communities need us to do to protect them,’ Sir Steve added.
Scotland Yard said the stop was a mistake caused by an officer incorrectly entering the car’s registration number, which meant it appeared to have been registered in North Yorkshire.
Sir Steve said the officers were not initially aware of the mistake and felt ‘with good reason’ that they should do further checks on the car.
He added: ‘I expect officers to have professional curiosity and I would have done the same.’
Miss Butler, the MP for Brent, said the BMW she was in was being driven by a black male when police stopped it in Hackney, east London, on Sunday. The episode had been an example of racial profiling from the ‘institutionally racist’ force, she claimed.
Sir Steve said he had discussed with the MP her concerns over why the stop was made.
‘I have viewed all the available video material of that interaction and I have read their statements – the officers acted professionally and politely, explaining why the stop was made and, when realising there was a mistake, explaining this and continuing to answer the occupants’ questions,’ he said.
‘Professional and polite’
‘Ms Butler has said that she has no complaint about how the stop was conducted, rather her concerns lie in why the stop was initiated and I have discussed these with her.’
He criticised the culture of attacking police on social media, adding: ‘Officers expect to be scrutinised and there are existing, appropriate and proportionate processes for making complaints … and on the occasions where there is fault – unlike this case – for consequences to follow.’
He condemned the abuse that Miss Butler has faced on social media following her post about the stop, and said police were working to support her.
Ken Marsh, the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents thousands of rank and file officers, complained earlier this week that it was unfair that members of the public could publish videos of officers but they were unable to respond by releasing their own footage from body cameras.
He said: ‘We are fed up with individuals being allowed to film my colleagues with impunity and put it out on every social media strand within five seconds, wherever they want, but we’re not allowed under legal grounds... to do the same.
‘Now, that sounds a bit perverse, don’t you think, because we’ve got nothing to hide.’