Last modified on Sat 19 Dec 2020 07.19 EST
A man who has been stopped by police in London dozens of times although he has never been found guilty of any offence, says he plans to sue them for “severe racial profiling”.
Ryan Colaço, 31, hit the headlines after posting footage on social media about two police stop-and-search incidents that happened in quick succession. The first took place on 23 May in Northumberland Park in north London when he said Metropolitan police officers “aggressively tailgated” him. Police said they could smell cannabis from his car but none was found.
The second took place less than a week later on 29 May, when he was driving home from an interview at Channel 4 about the first incident. He was stopped by City of London police, who accused him of “dashing stuff up in his waistband”. He said officers smashed his car window, forcefully removed him from his car, handcuffed him, drug tested him and took him to a police station where he was strip-searched and held for 12 hours. Nothing was found.