Police accused of abusing search powers

Lord Carlile said he also had evidence that officers were stopping individuals under the so-called Section 44 legislation where there was "not the slightest possibility of him/her being a terrorist."

Police in the past have been accused of excessively targeting black and Asian people for search under anti terrorism powers.

Carlile said the search powers contained in the Terrorism Act 2000 should be used far less and their overuse was damaging community relations.

"There is little or no evidence that the use of Section 44 has the potential to prevent an act of terrorism as compared with other statutory powers of stop and search," he said in his annual report.

"Whilst arrests for other crime have followed searches under the section, none of the many thousands of searches has ever resulted in conviction of a terrorism offence."

The Section 44 power allows officers to stop and search anyone in specially designated areas without the need for prior suspicion that they may possess terrorism materials.

This is in contrast to other stop and search rules where police must be satisfied there are reasonable grounds for the intervention.

The use of anti-terror stops almost trebled last year to almost 125,000, with the vast bulk occurring in the London area covered by the Metropolitan Police.

There was a disproportionate rise in the numbers of black and Asian people stopped, provoking criticism of police actions.

Carlile said there was "ample anecdotal evidence" that people were being stopped to produce a racial balance in the statistics, which he said was an invasion of their civil liberties.

"I can well understand the concerns of the police that they should be free from allegations of prejudice.

"But it is not a good use of precious resources if they waste them on self-evidently unmerited searches," he said.

"The criteria for Section 44 stops should be objectively based, irrespective of racial considerations.

"If an objective basis happens to produce an ethnic imbalance, that may have to be regarded as a proportional consequence of operational policing."

The majority of prisoners (91 percent) convicted of terrorism offences in England and Wales classify themselves as Muslim, while just over half those remanded on terrorism offences are of Asian ethnic origin.

A Home Office spokesman said stop and search helped deter terrorist activity but that maintaining good community relations was also important.

"We are continuing to work with the police to ensure that the use of stop and search powers strikes the right balance," he said.