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Keir Starmer says Bianca Williams incident 'difficult to justify' and that senior Met police should 'feel uncomfortable'

GB sprinting star Bianca Williams was detained in front of her three-month-old baby: Getty/Twitter
GB sprinting star Bianca Williams was detained in front of her three-month-old baby: Getty/Twitter

Labour leader Keir Starmer has weighed into an alleged racial profiling incident involving a British athlete and her partner, saying actions by the Metropolitan Police appear to be “difficult to justify”.

Bianca Williams, a European and Commonwealth sprinting gold medallist, and her partner, Ricardo dos Santos, a Portuguese sprinter, have accused the Met of racial profiling after they were subjected to a “stop-and-search” at the weekend.

The incident, captured on video and shared widely on social media, saw the couple dragged from their car and handcuffed while their three-month-old son sat in the back seat.

In the video, the mother can be heard shouting "my son is in the car" before being handcuffed.

The couple, who had been returning to their west London home with their three-month-old son Zuri-Li, were then detained for 45 minutes before being released.

Labour leader Keir Starmer made the comments while on an LBC radio show interview on Monday morning(PA)
Labour leader Keir Starmer made the comments while on an LBC radio show interview on Monday morning(PA)

Ms Williams, 26, and her partner, 25, who are both training for the Olympics, told The Times on Monday that they are consulting lawyers and plan to make a formal complaint, as the couple fear they were targeted because they are black and drive a Mercedes.

The Labour leader is a barrister and former Director of Public Prosecutions.

On Monday morning, during a phone interview with radio station LBC, he commented on the incident, saying that, based on the video alone, he was unable to see the “justification” for the officers’ actions.

Sir Keir said: “I’ve looked at the video footage, the video footage only deals with what happened at the car, so I can’t say what happened before they got to the car.

“When they got to the car I didn’t really think they handled it very well at all, because there was a child, a very young child in the back, and the use of handcuffs is always very controversial - and I couldn’t actually see what the justification for that was.”

He added that, based on his extensive experience as a prosecutor, watching the video would make “uncomfortable” viewing for Metropolitan Police upper brass.

He said: “Now we will wait and see, it will be for the police to justify their actions, and I don’t know what led to the stop in the first place.

“But what I do know is that as a senior officer looking at that video footage I would feel uncomfortable about the way that it was dealt with.”

Ms Williams told The Times: “It's racial profiling. The way they spoke to Ricardo, like he was scum, dirt on their shoe, was shocking."

She added: "When the police are acting that violently, anything can go wrong. And there was no apology after they removed the handcuffs and told us we were free to go."

Their coach, the former Olympic gold-medallist Linford Christie, 60, has also accused the Met of institutional racism.

Scotland Yard issued a statement saying that its officers had been "patrolling in the W9 area in response to an increase in youth violence involving weapons" and had stopped a car that had "made off at speed from the officers, travelling [on] the wrong side of the road".

Commander Helen Harper said that she was satisfied there was no misconduct.

She told The Times: “The officers were deployed to a high-violence area and the manner of the driving raised suspicion - it is only right that they act on it.”

But this account was refuted by Ms Williams, who said the car was “never” on the wrong side of the road.

She told Radio 4's Today show: “That is false, we were never on the wrong side of the road. We were driving down through single-width roads.

“We only found out about us driving on the wrong side of the road once they tweeted in on Saturday afternoon.

“This isn’t the first or fourth or fifth time – it must be about the 10th (her partner has been stopped by police), it’s getting ridiculous.”

The incident is the latest in a series of controversial stop and search incidents involving black and ethnic minority groups around the capital in recent months.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, has stringently denied that her force has a racism problem.

The Independent Office of Police Conduct has said that it will investigate the incident.

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