STOP AND SEARCH IS VITAL, SAYS MET CHIEF

THE new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Stevens, yesterday
put stop and search, the tactic which caused so much trouble for his
predecessor, at the centre of his plans for policing the capital over the
next five years.

But Sir John, who takes over from Sir Paul Condon today, said that officers
would have to be better trained in their use of the tactic after he
disclosed that he had been stopped "aggressively" twice in the past three
years. He also predicted that senior officers would reach "contracts" over
stop and search with leaders of local communities.

He said 46 per cent of people arrested for drugs and 86 per cent of those
arrested for possession of offensive weapons had been stopped and searched.
Sir John, 57, said communities of all kinds in London wanted action against
crime. He said the community in Brixton, south London, from where some of
Sir Paul's stiffest critics have come, had asked for more action against
those dealing in crack cocaine.

He recalled two incidents in which he was stopped. The first was three years
ago, while he was a member of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary. He was
stopped by a policeman at about 1.30am while walking in civilian clothes in
the St James area of central London.

He said: "He was quite agressive. I could feel my hackles rising as he spoke
to me. I was not doing anything remotely suspicious but he stopped me.
Eventually, I had to stop him and have a word with him about the way he was
going about things." He attributed the apparent "in your face" aggression of
the 22-year-old Pc to the officer's nervousness, he said.

In the second incident, seven months ago, he was stopped in his car as he
drove from an airfield in the Midlands. He said: "Again, it was not the fact
that I was stopped, it was the attitude. Stop and search is an important
tool for preventing crime. But we currently don't train people in how they
conduct stop and search. We have got to have better training."