Senior Scotland Yard officer says stop and search can improve community relations

A police officer stands on duty at the scene of a fatal stabbing in east London
Justin Davenport31 May 2017
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A senior Scotland Yard officer has backed the use of stop and search to combat knife crime, saying it can improve relations between police and communities.

Chief Superintendent John Sutherland said that if officers treat suspects with respect then it can lead to a positive rather than negative outcome.

Mr Sutherland, a former borough commander in Camden and Southwark, said: “There is an assumption that a negative stop and search [one that does not find anything] is by definition a negative thing.

"If someone stops someone with reasonable grounds and does not find anything, it does not mean they have got it wrong. In fact, it can turn out to be a positive thing.”

His comments came after a recent spike in knife crime in London which saw 14 people killed in four weeks.

The Met is also battling a 24 per cent rise in overall knife crime offences. Scotland Yard has launched an 80-strong squad to tackle outbreaks of violence and stepped up stop and search in boroughs with high levels of knife crime.

Mr Sutherland, who has written a book about life in policing called Blue, said in his experience most people supported the use of stop and search — provided it was done “professionally, responsibly and even-handedly”.

He said: “In the short term, the undeniable experience of my professional life is that stop and search saves lives. It is the most significant tactic or option we have to have an impact on the carrying of knives, but it is not the long-term solution.”

The Met scaled back the use of stop and search after Theresa May, then home secretary, called for more intelligence-led use of the power.

Mr Sutherland, who joined the Met in 1992, writes that young people want police to use the power to keep them safe. He told the Standard that people who argued about whether officers found a weapon or not were missing the point, saying there was a bigger question of “who is in charge out there”.

He said: “It is not about us being overly assertive, just about saying when you walk down Acacia Avenue, is there a sense of safety or is there a sense of danger? A lot of that is to do with responsible adults, such as the police, fulfilling their responsibilities.”

He added: “We don’t get stop and search right all of the time, sometimes we get it wrong. But I think we need to have a more mature conversation with the police acknowledging that we have to do it right but explaining that, by heaven, we have got to do it.

“But only as part of a bigger plan, because stop and search won’t stop knife crime, it is a finger in the dyke.”

In the book, Mr Sutherland also recounts his battles with depression and how he had a breakdown while in post as a commander in Southwark in 2013.

Mr Sutherland, who now works in HR, believes the “wear and tear” of policing, and repeated exposure to extreme trauma, contributed to his illness.

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