Labour MP Dawn Butler has accused the police of being institutionally racist after she was stopped by police as she travelled to Sunday lunch with a friend.
The former shadow equalities minister says the car was being driven by a male friend, who is also black, when they were pulled over by officers in Hackney, East London on Sunday.
The officers claimed they made the decision to stop the vehicle upon discovering it was registered in North Yorkshire, when they wrongly entered the registration number into a computer system. However, after pulling Butler and her friend over and checking the vehicle registration, they realised the mistake and apologised. Neither the car nor the vehicle were searched.
The politician recorded the incident on her mobile phone and could be heard in the video telling the officers, 'It is really quite irritating. It’s like you cannot drive around and enjoy a Sunday afternoon whilst black because you’re going to be stopped by police.' One of the officers responds by saying, 'I appreciate everything you say and I do apologise for wasting your time.'
Despite this being the third time Butler has been stopped by police as an MP, she has since been accused of doctoring the footage by conspiracy theorists and trolls on Twitter, who claim she flipped her camera phone and that her friend was white.
She responded with a measured tweet, which read, 'Good morning twitter I see the racist trolls are going crazy with conspiracy theories. Someone who claims to be an ex police officer is challenging me to a debate. No need waste my time as I'm speaking to current police officers. Working together to make the system better.'
Butler - a strong critic of police stop-and-search tactics - also claimed she wouldn't have released the footage if it wasn't for the negative attitude of two police officers on the scene, one of which asked her where she lived and where she was going because 'there’s people who have been coming into the area'. They allegedly didn't clarify what they meant by this comment.
Another female officer also told Butler that tinted rear windows on the car could be illegal, despite this being incorrect as the law about tinting on windows only applies to the windscreen and front windows.
Butler later said, 'I had no intention of speaking about this until the officers became very obnoxious. I just felt that if I don’t use my platform to talk about this, I’m doing a disservice to everyone who gets wrongly stopped and searched, and all the black people who are constantly unjustly profiled.
'We were just going out to have a nice lunch. My plans were basically ruined. It’s a sunny Sunday, and you don’t get many of those.
'I’ve been stopped while driving twice as an MP. My friend has experienced it a number of times. That’s why his attitude was just like, ‘Here, have my driving licence. Here we go again.''
The statistics released last month reveal the undeniable institutional racism within the police force. They showed that young black men were stopped and searched by police over 20,000 times in London during the lockdown, which equates to over a quarter of all black 15 to 24-year-olds in London. Across England, there were four stop and searches for every 1,000 white people and 38 for every 1,000 black people in 2018-19.
Following the incident, the Met police released a statement that read, 'Prior to stopping the vehicle, an officer incorrectly entered the registration into a police computer which identified the car as registered to an address in Yorkshire.
'Upon stopping the vehicle and speaking with the driver, it quickly became apparent that the registration had been entered incorrectly and was registered to the driver in London. Once the mistake was realised the officer sought to explain this to the occupants; they were then allowed on their way. No searches were carried out on any individuals.
'One of the occupants has since been contacted by a senior officer and they have discussed the stop, subsequent interaction as well as feedback regarding the stop. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter further with the occupants if they wish to do so.'
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