I was ‘shop and searched’ at Westfield

A few years ago, I went to Westfield in Stratford, east London. The usual question I get when I retell my “shop and search” story is: “Why did you think about running if you had nothing to hide?” It’s usually asked by the same people who ask: “Why would stop and search bother you if you’re not carrying anything illegal?” The answer is because these incidents can be extremely traumatic, intrusive, and – especially when you’re laden with shopping bags – inconvenient. And if you give the “wrong” answer, have a look they don’t much like, or simply display the wrong attitude, they can and will detain you. At a “high” point during Priti Patel’s tenure in charge, her department spent £25,500 of taxpayers’ money a day on those it had wrongly detained. My experience happened during the glorious era of then home secretary Theresa May’s “hostile environment”, when vans with “Go home” emblazoned on their sides drove menacingly up and down Britain’s streets.