Black people nine times as likely to be stop and searched by Sussex Police than white people

Black people in Sussex were nine times as likely to be stop and searched by police than white people last year, new figures show.

Human rights organisation Liberty said stop and searches only worsen division in communities and called on the Government to invest in "solutions to tackle the root cause of crime".

Home Office figures show Sussex Police carried out 544 stop and searches on black people in the year to March – equivalent to 25.4 per 1,000 black people in the area based on recent census estimates.

This is compared to a rate of 2.8 per 1,000 white people in Sussex, meaning black people were nine times as likely to be stopped and searched by police.

Across forces in England and Wales, people who self-identified or who police identified as black were 5.5 times more likely to be subject to a stop-and-search last year – down from 6.2 in 2021-22.

These figures come as five Metropolitan Police officers have denied gross misconduct at a disciplinary hearing over the stop and search of athletes Bianca Williams and her partner Ricardo Dos Santos. The couple, who are black, were handcuffed after a stop and search in 2020.