Home Secretary Priti Patel is preparing to risk uproar by giving police new stop and search powers – despite claims by campaigners that they target the black community unfairly.
New legislation intended to tackle spiralling knife crime will give police the automatic right to search individuals who have previously been convicted of knife offences without, as at present, having ‘reasonable grounds’ to suspect they are carrying a weapon.
Ms Patel, whose move comes seven years after Theresa May introduced changes to the powers when she was at the Home Office to make it less ‘biased’, told The Mail on Sunday that she was acting because mothers of stabbed children insist ‘stop and search is a vital tool to tackle knife crime’.