If Trevor Phillips won't enforce the Race Relations Act against the police, I will

Drowned out by the trumpets of war come the latest Home Office figures for police use of stop-and-search powers. Had these figures been published in normal circumstances, they would have caused a national scandal, with reports on television, radio and the newspaper front pages.

The figures show the number of Asians subject to stop-and-search was up nationally by 16 per cent in 2001-2002 against the previous year. The number of blacks was up by 6 per cent, the number of whites down by 2 per cent. In London, the Metropolitan Police stopped 40 per cent more Asians and 30 per cent more blacks, but 8 per cent fewer white people.

These figures illustrate a systematic persecution of the black and Asian communities and racially prejudiced policing on a scale never experienced before. Black and Asian representation on the Metropolitan Police Authority has increased considerably and was meant to bring some order to the disorderly behaviour of white policemen. It has had the opposite effect. Black faces are now used to legitimise the prejudiced behaviour of police officers.

This problem has been around from the early 1960s, when the "sus" law was used and abused against the newly arrived immigrants. The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination, of which I was part, was formed partly in response. Decades have passed, the sus law has been abolished, the Macpherson report came and went - and nothing has changed. In fact, new powers have been handed to the police. Senior officers have the power to declare what is virtually a state of emergency in a defined area, and at once every "darkie" becomes a potential victim of police officers, most of them armed.

The Commission for Racial Equality has enforcement powers under the Race Relations Act that it can use against police forces up and down the country. Trevor Phillips, the commission's new boss, says he will "consider" using them "if we continue heading in the wrong direction".

This is not good enough. We have been heading in the wrong direction for 40 years. Many of us fought hard to give teeth to a gummy Race Relations Act; now we find that it is not being used effectively. I invite lawyers among NS readers to advise whether, as a private citizen, I can take the commission before a judge and compel Phillips and his co-workers to enforce the law. Let the summonses fly. I am ready to bite the bullet.

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