The last time Kayla interacted with a police officer she was being pushed against the wall of a railway station in East London and patted down in a knife search.

The 18-year-old has an unhappy history with the law: she spent nine months in a detention centre last year after an assault on a female constable.

Yet she is one of hundreds of black and ethnic teenagers, among them former gang members, who are advising police on their street operations and the thorny issue of stop and search – the key tactic in the fight against knife crime.

In an attempt to reduce tensions, hundreds of youths from deprived areas in the capital have been taking part in police workshops since the autumn. They have instructed officers on the type of slang and behaviour to adopt, and on ways to be as inoffensive as possible when approaching people to search them for weapons.

If the meetings are a success in London, the programme will be extended to other areas where there are high levels of youth crime.

The new approach comes as police carry out more stop and search operations in response to an increase in knife crime in the capital, where 28 young people have been murdered this year. Police carried out almost one million stop-and-searches last year, up 9 per cent on the previous year.

Since Operation Blunt Two began on May 19, as part of a crackdown on knife crime, more than 126,500 people have been searched and more than 2,900 knives have been seized.

While the Metropolitan Police have adopted a zero-tolerance approach against people carrying knives, groups representing ethnic minorities have expressed fears that the method risks disenfranchising entire communities.

Black people are five times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. Police hope that the meetings with young people will help to strengthen relations when they might become more strained.

The Times was given exclusive access to a workshop in Waltham Forest, northeast London, where up to 50 young people related their concerns about stop and search to a group of police recruits and suggested ways to improve methodology.

The teenagers were advised to use pseudonyms and not to describe any offences in which they may have been involved, with the warning that, if they did, police would be compelled to take action.

One youth, who had been arrested on various occasions and did not wish to be named, said that tensions would be reduced if police were less “cold” in their approach. “Most people are innocent – they get upset when they are targeted. Often police make it worse because they come across all rude and nasty,” he said.

Kayla, from Leytonstone, East London, whose assault on a female police officer was carried out after she was stopped and searched, admitted that her actions were wrong but said that she was upset by the behaviour of officers towards her. “This [the workshop] helps us to understand each other better. Young people don’t really get on with police at all and we need to change that. I hope they listen to us,” she said.

Many of the group, who were aged between 15 and 21, had never been in trouble but lived in the council estates and poorer areas that tended to be targeted by police. They told of how they felt increasingly alienated and victimised when they were regularly approached by officers, despite having done nothing wrong.

Asked to carry out role-plays of the different ways in which they had been approached by police, they described how many officers were rude and sometimes aggressive towards them. Some claimed that they had been stopped and searched illegally and accused officers of being motivated by racial hostility.

Sergeant Colin Geddes, a recruiting officer, said that it was important for police recruits to learn how their behaviour affected young people. “We want them to learn the right way to do things. If they don’t interact with locals, they will have an isolated view of policing,” he said.

Searching questions

— Stop and search came to prominence with the Brixton riots in 1981. Police began an operation to deal with street crime in South London and searched large numbers of young black men in Brixton. It led to anger and resentment, and ultimately street battles with police

— The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 introduced rules for stop and search, requiring “reasonable suspicion” that an offence had been committed

— In 1999 the Macpherson Inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence murder recommended the stop-and-search form, in which police gave their reasons for each stop and search

— Under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice Act 1994, police no longer need grounds for reasonable suspicion. Under emergency powers approved in May, this is used in ten London boroughs as part of Operation Blunt Two

Source: Times archive

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