The BBC reports about an ECHR ruling which finds that the practice stopping and searching people without grounds for suspicion is illegal. Hurrah.
Three years ago I was stopped and searched in London Bridge station, while wearing CS95 uniform (normal military camouflage uniform, if you’re wondering). Having presented my ID, I asked the PCSO why he had picked me, and his response was little more than a grunting assertion that I couldn’t be given special treatment just because I was a military officer. Fair enough – I didn’t expect special treatment. Justification would have been nice, though.
The truth was, of course, that the sole justification for my being stopped and searched was that the PCSO had to be seen to be searching someone, no matter who they were, or how unlikely it was that they intended to, I don’t know, blow up a Tube train. Stopping and searching entirely innocent people in the clear absence of suspicion is a box-ticking waste of time, and an unacceptable invasion of privacy. It is to be hoped that the police take note of the ECHR ruling and use their powers more wisely, proportionately and intelligently in future.
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