Labour MP Dawn Butler accuses Met Police of racially profiling after they stopped her driving through Hackney
- The MP for Brent Central tweeted she had been stopped by police in Hackney
- Ms Butler, parliament’s third black female MP, later released heated footage
- Chief Superintendent Roy Smith confirmed there had been a police stop
Labour’s Dawn Butler has accused the police of racially profiling her after she was pulled over while driving in East London.
The MP for Brent Central filmed her heated confrontation with two officers in Hackney.
While two uniformed constables stand outside her car, she tells them through the window: ‘I’ve been doing a lot of work with the police on stop and search, and how the police are stop and searching, and actually the way you do it and the way you profile is wrong.
‘Because what you do is, you create an environment where you create animosity.
‘And it’s irritating because you cannot drive around on a Sunday afternoon whilst black because you’re going to be stopped by the police.’
Ms Butler, Parliament’s third black female MP, acknowledged the male officer had been ‘polite’, but said the ‘profiling was completely off’.
Speaking to Sky News, she said: ‘The institution is racist. One of the other police officers came and said “I can’t see what’s in the back of your car”.
‘You don’t need to see what’s in the back of the car. Why do you need to see what’s in the back of the car? What’s that about?
‘So there is an institutional racism in the police, we know that, and it needs to be taken out. It’s cancerous and it needs to be cut out out of the police force. It’s urgent, it’s really urgent.’
Labour’s Dawn Butler has railed on social media after being pulled over by police in East London
A Met chief superintendent confirmed there had been a police stop and that the MP had expressed her ‘concerns’.
Chief Superintendent Roy Smith said: ‘I’ve just spoken with Dawn Butler by phone.
‘She has given me a very balanced account of the incident. She was positive about one officer and gave feedback on others & the stop.
‘We are listening to those concerns and Dawn is quite entitled to raise them.’
Although it is not clear what happened, friends of Ms Butler rallied around her.
Kate Osamor MP, who sits alongside her on the Labour backbenches, replied: ‘Hope you’re ok?’
Ms Butler, who served as Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow minister for women and equalities, yesterday hit out at Metropolitan Police officers who rubbished the notion children should be invulnerable to arrest.
In a scathing rebuke, she tweeted: ‘The problem is you are arresting children going for a bike ride or going to the shops for a loaf of bread.
‘Not all African-Caribbean boys should be viewed as criminals! I should be surprised the police liked this but sadly I’m not.’
And in an article published yesterday, she called on Scotland Yard Commissioner Cressida Dick to resign for failing to stamp out ‘institutional racism’ within her ranks.
She wrote in Metro: ‘In case anyone doubts the experiences of people of colour, the statistics are stark.
‘The Met are four times more likely to use force on Black people. They have stopped and searched the equivalent of one in four young black men in London during lockdown.’
She added: ‘At this most pivotal time the commissioner thought it appropriate to say that “institutionally racist” is not a “useful way to describe” the force, which is not only unhelpful but offensive.
‘It is quite telling. Cressida Dick appears to be incapable of tackling this long-known problem, and incapable of showing solidarity with those people who suffer from it the most, so she should resign.’
The Metropolitan Police said it is looking into the episode and Ms Butler could not be reached.