Met off icer: I was racially prof iled by white policemen
A BLACK police inspector plans to sue Scotland Yard for racial harassment after two white officers stopped him while he was driving.
Charles Ehikioya, 55, said he had recorded the stop, which happened as he returned from work in south London on May 23, because he saw that the officer’s body-worn camera was not switched on.
He said he was pulled over for no reason except that he was black, and felt he had ‘no choice’ but to sue because his complaint was not taken seriously.
‘It’s not the whole organisation that’s like that, it’s only a few individuals that are causing this issue,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday.
‘It’s just sad that some people don’t want to hear it... I feel that has not been taken seriously and has not been listened to, but instead I am being persecuted, and I am not prepared to sit quietly. Therefore I have no choice but to react in the way I am reacting.’ He also told the BBC the incident showed ‘an abuse of power’ and he was speaking out in solidarity with the black community.
Scotland Yard said it had received an internal complaint on May 24 but a review had ‘found no evidence of misconduct’. It comes after a senior officer was forced to deny the force was ‘institutionally racist’ following accusations from Labour MP Dawn Butler, who, along with a friend who had been driving, was stopped by officers in Hackney, east London, last week. And in July, the British sprinter Bianca Williams received an apology after she and her partner were pulled over in west London.
Mr Ehikioya, who has been with the police for 22 years, was stopped in Croydon. One of the officers claimed he was going too fast and ‘it looked like he had gone through a red light’. The officer also asked for his driving licence and proof he was insured to drive his Toyota iQ, that it had not been stolen, that he was not intoxicated and that he had not been using his phone.
The Met inspector strongly disputed the allegations and the two officers left after Mr Ehikioya showed them his police badge. Asked why he thought he was pulled over, he said: ‘No other reason than the fact that they’d seen a black man driving a car.’
Last night Scotland Yard commander Alison Heydari defended the officers who made the stop.
She said: ‘The review found no evidence at all of racial profiling. There have been comments that these officers… are “clearly racist”. I cannot say strongly enough how wholly unfair that is based upon the evidence. They were simply doing their job.’