Police ‘spend 25 years’ filling in stop and search forms

Officers carried out 1.87 million “stops” on members of the public in 2006/07, up from 1.4 million.

Each stop and search form takes an estimated seven minutes each to fill in.

It means that police spent the equivalent of 25 years filling in the “stop” forms last year.

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This is the first time the Government had published full figures on the unpopular paperwork, which is blamed for burdening officers with red tape.

The Tories called for them to be scrapped earlier this year.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

A “stop” is defined as an officer requesting a person in a public place to account for themselves such as their actions and behaviour.

The figures showed that 37 out of 43 forces in England and Wales recorded an increase.

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