A SENIOR Met officer has said police involved in the stop of a car in that Labour MP Dawn Butler was travelling in – an incident she has classed as racial profiling – were not at fault.

Butler was the passenger in a vehicle driven by her friend when the pair, both black, were pulled over by police on Sunday.

After the stop, the former shadow equalities minister who recorded the interaction, said that she believed she was a victim of racial profiling.

Butler said that she had no problem with the manner in which the officer who initially stopped her approached and her friend but took issue with the reason for the stop.

She told Sky News on Sunday that “there is institutional racism in the police”, describing it as a cancerous and calling for it to be cut out.

Today, deputy commissioner Sir Steve House defended the actions of the officers, part of the Violent Crime Task Force, involved in the incident.

He said: “Criminals often use vehicles to travel in and to commit crime, therefore officers will often check cars to see if there is anything that requires them to stop it and do further checks. The officers ran a number plate check on the vehicle. At this stage, the officers still didn’t know who the occupants of the car were, including their ethnicity because the car windows were tinted.”

The Met has said one of the officers made a mistake when entering the car’s registration into a police database.

The results led them to believe the car was from another part of the UK and this prompted them to initiate the stop, according to the Met.

House also criticised those who use social media to complain about policing, arguing that it was damaging.

“Officers expect to be scrutinised and there are existing, appropriate and proportionate processes for making complaints and for facts to be established, and on the occasions where there is fault – unlike this case – for consequences to follow. The increasingly routine trial by social media is unfair and damaging to individual officers and has the potential to undermine the role our communities need us to do to protect them and keep them safe from violence,” he said.

Abuse

Since speaking out about the stop, Butler, who recently made the decision to close her constituency office in Willesden as a result of continued threats and violence, has been subjected to online abuse on social media.

House, who said he has spoken to Butler about the stop, also used his statement to condemn the abuse she has been receiving in relation to her comments.

He said: “It is unwarranted and unacceptable and we are working to support her.”

The Guardian has reported that Butler is due to meet with Met police chief Dame Cressida Dick on Wednesday evening to discuss her concerns.