For those who doubt the existence of ‘racial profiling’ tendencies amongst Police Officers, I here offer a report on the case of my client Zac Sharif-Ali, a black man of Somalian heritage, who suffered no less than three unlawful stop-and-search events at the hands of the Metropolitan Police over an 8 year period. I have previously written about his other cases here. This week’s blog post concerns his third successful claim.
One evening in July 2020, Zac was driving home in his BMW motor car when he noticed a marked Police carrier van travelling in the opposite direction. As the two vehicles past each other, Zac noticed the Police van slow and perform a U-turn manoeuvre.
A short distance along the same road Zac reached his home address and began reversing into his normal car parking space outside. As he did so, the Police carrier suddenly pulled up sharply alongside him.
A female Officer now known to be PC Lawless and two male Officers alighted from the van and walked rapidly towards Zac’s car. He lowered his driver’s door window.
PC Lawless said “Hello mate you alright? Do you mind stopping the vehicle and getting out?” to which Zac asked “What for?” and PC Lawless replied “So we can chat with you, sir.”
Zac considered his vehicle to be in an unsafe position (halfway through an angled parking manoeuvre) and therefore decided to finish parking up before he spoke to the Officers. Before doing so, he wound up his window because it was raining. PC Lawless immediately opened the driver’s door and said to my client “Right, now I’ve asked you to get out of the vehicle, you’re detained under Section 1 Police and Criminal Evidence Act.” Zac removed his seatbelt and responded “I was just parking my vehicle, I live right here”.
Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) is that which allows Police Officers to detain a person for the purposes of a search of his person or his vehicle for “stolen or prohibited articles” (which includes offensive weapons) – provided, of course, that the Officer has objectively reasonable grounds for suspecting the person to be in possession of such items. For the avoidance of doubt, being a black man in possession of a BMW does not amount to grounds to suspect that you are a criminal.
PC Lawless stated – “Sir, my name is PC Lawless from Larkhall Police Station and you’re entitled to a copy of the search form afterwards. Get out of the vehicle now sir.” Zac now began to voluntarily exit his car, but PC Lawless and her colleague PC Vigneswaran nevertheless seized hold of his arms and handcuffed his hands behind his back, notwithstanding his compliance. Zac’s mobile phone and keys were also seized.
PC Lawless now continued, “As I’ve explained, I’ve asked you to get out of the vehicle, you’ve refused. You put your window up as though you’re trying to hide something and then you’ve continued to reverse back, okay”. This could not, in fact, amount to reasonable grounds for a search – for a start, what Zac was doing was not unreasonable; he had not refused to get out of the vehicle; and, most importantly, the Officers had clearly already decided to stop-and-search him before they even spoke to him.
At this point, my client recognised two of the other Officers present, PC Ngo and PS Rees, who had stopped him for a negative drugs search in May 2020, as detailed in my previous blog post.
Zac was led over to a wall, where PC Lawless said “The reason why we wanted to have a chat with you sir is that you’ve come out of the junction really quickly… right, you’ve shot out that junction really quickly. You’ve then seen us come towards you on blue lights, you’ve then spun the vehicle round and it looks as though you’ve gone to drive off. I’ve then approached you and asked you to get out of the vehicle multiple times, you’ve done the window up and continued to drive as though you might drive off. So, I’ve detained under Section 1 for weapons…”
PC Lawless then continued “The reason why I have put you in handcuffs is I suspect you having weapons on you, you could have stored them in the waistband etc, you could grab them and you could easily attack one of us ….. The reason why I took your mobile phones out of your hand is because they could be used as weapons to either attack me or my colleague.”
Zac was flabbergasted by these spurious accusations, though at the same time they were depressingly familiar to him. He had no doubt that the Officers’ suspicion of him was based on his ethnicity, or, we might say, no more than skin- deep.
The Officers now informed Zac that he would now be taken into the Police carrier and searched; given his previous experience of Police violence, including being subjected to a ‘choke-hold’ by PC Bullock of the Met in the 2012 incident, Zac’s heart immediately started racing and he felt scared that the Officers were going to assault him. Accordingly, he immediately remonstrated and requested that he be searched in the street “in front of everyone” to ensure his safety.
PC Lawless replied that there were certain things that could not be done in the street such as the removal of Zac’s shoes. Again, my client requested that the search take place in public. PC Lawless responded “I’m happy to search you initially here, but then we’re going to need to do a more thorough search on the bus.”
PC Lawless then began to carry out a ‘pat down’ search of my client. PC Vigneswaran commented that Zac’s request “raised his suspicion” that Zac “had something concealed upon him.” Zac honestly replied that he was scared. He was already in pain and discomfort, owing to the tightness of the handcuffs upon his wrists.
Despite the fact that Zac now removed his shoes himself, on the street, PC Lawless continued to maintain that his shoes could not be checked here “because it needs to be out of view” – a bizarre piece of check-box bureaucratic brutality in the circumstances. Multiple Officers forced Zac into the Police carrier with PC Lawless also claiming that his reluctance to get in was raising her “suspicions.”
The response of the Police here displays both a lack of compassion and of common- sense. Officers so often fail to appreciate that their unwanted, intimidating presence is going to cause the very behaviour in people that they then claim as some kind of retrospective justification of their original decision to detain that person: such retrospective reasoning is not, of course, lawful and in any event mistakes effect for cause.
Zac was now further searched, as was his vehicle: nothing illegal, of course, was present.
Nevertheless, Zac was not free to leave. PC Arthur now informed my client that they suspected that he was under the influence of drink or drugs and would be subjected to a breath test and a drug wipe accordingly. He was told he would remain under detention whilst testing equipment was obtained. This prolonged the emotional torment Zac was already under, as he was told he could not leave the Police carrier, despite his fears. Notwithstanding that nothing had been found on my client or in his vehicle, he continued to be handcuffed.
This is another sadly common tactic deployed by Police Officers who have overstepped the mark: if at first, they don’t succeed, they will try, try again to find a reason to criminalise their victim, in order to cover their initial mistake.
PC Lawless now at last relented, and assisted Zac out of the carrier – although she still refused to remove his handcuffs, despite his compliance; another unlawful use of force upon my client.
When Zac again protested and asserted that all he had been doing was to reverse his car to park outside his home, PC Lawless at last moved his handcuffs and told him that she would complete the stop-and-search form that he was entitled to under the GOWISELY code which governs the legality of street searches.
Somewhat farcically and giving the lie to any suggestion that the Officers properly suspected that Zac was under the influence of drink/ drugs, PS Rees now requested that Zac move his vehicle (i.e finish parking it) and his keys were returned to him. He was also allowed to go into his flat to relieve himself, and then on his return was informed that as there had been a delay in the testing equipment arriving, he would not now be tested and was, at last, free to go. PC Lawless issued him with a copy of the stop- search record.
Striking Back: Zac’s Hatrick
And so, for the third time, Zac had to sue the Metropolitan Police with my assistance in order to assert his civil rights.
Given the typically combative approach of the Metropolitan Police to claims against them, I was not surprised when they denied liability, filing a Defence in which they asserted that PC Lawless had lawfully detained Zac for the purposes of a “weapons search” under Section 1 of PACE.
Denying – of course – that Zac’s ethnicity had anything to do with the decision to stop him, the Met were only able to offer the suggestion that Zac had “pulled out from a junction at speed” (whilst not providing any estimate of the alleged speed, nor having arrested Zac for any motoring offence) as a specific reason why they thought he might have weapons in his car, coupled with the highly generic assertion that there had been “an increase in gang and drug related crime” in the area. Such flimsy excuses could never amount to reasonable grounds to deprive a person of his liberty and commit trespass to his person, leaving us with the bad taste in our mouths of an unspoken, racial reason.
Apparently reluctant to have his Officers subjected to cross- examination on these issues, and notwithstanding the Defence which had been served, the Commissioner of Police backed down in the face of Zac’s determination and ultimately agreed a settlement of £7,500 damages for my client, plus his legal costs.
Of course, it never had to come to this, and Zac certainly wishes that it hadn’t, yet the Police must be held to account when they use ‘skin-deep’ reasons to interfere in an innocent person’s life. The Met should get this memo: BMW does not stand for “Black Male with Weapons.”
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