Government-backed knife crime campaigner wins Met Police payout over wrongful strip-search

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

A government-backed anti-knife crime campaigner has won damages from the Met Police after being strip-searched by officers, The Independent can reveal.

Faron Paul was paid £9,000 following his ordeal where he was subjected to a cavity search by six white, male officers at Charing Cross police station after being arrested during a traffic stop in October 2021.

News of the payout came in the same week the 38-year-old met with Sir Keir Starmer and actor Idris Elba in Downing Street for a summit on the government’s new knife crime campaign.

Referring to the strip-search incident, Mr Paul, who has been independently running a knife amnesty scheme in London called Faz Amnesty, claimed the officers involved “were on a power trip”.

“It upsets me because the officers knew exactly who I was and the work that I do in the community,” he told The Independent. “Yet they chose to take advantage of and racially profile me, then made malicious allegations against me, that I had to fight against to prove that they were the aggressors in the situation that they tried to make me liable for. Fighting back has made me feel as though I’ve reclaimed some of my power.”

Mr Paul’s partner was also wrongly strip-searched, he said, but the Met Police has failed to apologise to either of them for their ordeal.

“I didn’t get an apology,” he told The Independent. “They’d rather pay money and drag [out] a payout for two years than make a public apology,” he said. “I wish I knew then what I know now. I’ve been wrongly strip-searched several times before and didn’t know how to challenge it; strip-searches and racial profiling by the police are normalised.

“But now I know that what they did was wrong and it’ll never happen to me again, or any of my family or friends – and if it does, I’ll hold the police accountable again.”

He added: “I think many people have a Black family member or friend who has been illegally strip-searched.”

Black adults in London are nearly four times more likely than white adults to be strip-searched by police, official data shows, while Black children across England and Wales are up to six times more likely than white children to be strip-searched.

When asked if he has mixed feelings about working with the government following the strip-search incident, Mr Paul said “yes” but explained that he’s dedicated to helping communities and optimistic about the new Labour government’s commitment to tackling knife crime.

“The summit was positive but it’s early days,” he said. “I look forward to holding the government to account on what they say they’ll do, moving forward. I’ll have an eagle eye on it. I’m impressed; we had the last government for 14 years and they never called once during the whole time that I was running Faz Amnesty. In fact, they went against banning zombie knives.

“This summit was more about all the conversations being brought into action. It’s a good start but time will tell how effective the summit is going to be.”

On the strip-search payout, a Met Police spokesperson said: “A civil claim was settled without admission of liability. The claim relates to a matter in October 2021 where a 36-year-old man was charged with criminal damage, assault on police and using threatening or abusive words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress (public order offence)

“The man was later convicted of the public order offence and criminal damage. The charge regarding assault on police was dismissed at court. Part of the claim related to a strip-search in custody. Improving how we carry out strip-searches is a key focus for the Met with new policy and guidance introduced in May 2022.”