Cops asked young people to 'do a twirl' while videoing 'stop and search', claims Calderdale councillor

Calderdale scrutiny councillors were debating children’s safeguarding when Coun Mohammed Shazad Fazal raised the issue.

Coun Fazal (Lab, Park) said there had been two occasions when a group of young people had been stopped by police officers when they “had not done anything wrong.”

“On one occasion the officers made a video film of the lads and asked them to ‘do a twirl’ – is that the standard practice?" he said.

Coun Fazal said the story had shocked him and he advised them that if any officer did this to get their badge number and a superior officer’s details and he would try and investigate what had happened.

“So what’s the situation in terms of searching young lads for no apparent reason?” he said.

Superintendent Mick Brown, of Calderdale Police, told councillors he could not speak about any individual incidents, because he did not know the full circumstances.

But he insisted in respect of searching any person, particularly young people, the police had certain grounds that had to be there.

“My officers should be quite clearly outlining to any member of the public that they are stopping and searching on those grounds.

“All our officers wear body video at all times, so if you have any concerns regarding individual issues, then any interaction will be recorded so we can view it and make sure our officers have acted lawfully, with decent manners and in an appropriate fashion.

“I know you mentioned a ‘twirl’ – that doesn’t appear like something that should be taking place if I’m being entirely honest with you,” he said.

Supt Brown said he could assure the Children and Young People’s Services Scrutiny Board in respect of stop and search was that the vast majority of stop and searches are reviewed by a supervisor.

Additionally, the police’s continuous improvement team could undertake random checks of stop and searches where they watched the body cam video to make sure the grounds were appropriate, that officers’ behaviour was appropriate, to learn, and to make sure officers were only doing what they should be doing within the laws of the land, added Supt Brown.

“We do have real levels of scrutiny on all our stop and searches,” he said.

Coun Fazal said he had a lot of respect for the police force, understood it was not an easy job and there was a fine balance.

Board members heard there were issues including knife crime of concern in some areas, with Ovenden and Warley, in north Halifax, and Park ward, in central Halifax.

Council officers and police outlined approaches to tackling this including support for young people as well as enforcement action.

Supt Brown said the police tried to work with young people to try and stop any offending before it started, while keeping the community safe.

Engagement and education as well as enforcement were ways available to do this, not the same in every case to get the best result.

“Achieving the outcome is to make sure that young people don’t carry knives and understand the reasons why,” said Supt Brown.

Knife crime was a concern although Calderdale saw very low knife crime numbers, he added.