'Too many Asians face stop search'

Too many black and Asian people are being stopped and searched by the police, the Lord Chancellor has admitted. Lord Falconer said ethnic minorities were being routinely stopped for reasons which had "nothing to do with legitimate crime fighting".

The Lord Chancellor said the Government was determined to stop blacks and Asians from being unfairly targeted. "It's absolutely critical that people believe that the law is enforced race blind," he told the Independent.

In London last year 9,642 stop and searches were carried out resulting in 105 arrests. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald QC, has expressed concern about the impact of Home Secretary David Blunkett's anti-terror laws on community relations.

Mr Macdonald said the war on terror had sparked a rise in Islamophobia and warned it would be "dangerous" to alienate "whole communities."