THE number of controver- sial forms completed by police after stopping some- one on the street rose by more than a third last year. Officers carried out 1.87 million “stops” on members of the public in 2006/07, up from 1.4 million.

It was the first time the Government had published full figures on the unpopular paperwork, which is blamed for burdening officers with red tape. A Home Office review has already suggested over- hauling the measures, which were introduced in the wake of the racist murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, by replacing the foot-long form with a simple receipt. Separate figures showed black people were seven times more likely to be “stopped and searched” by police than white people in 2006/07, a slightly higher ratio than in the previous 12 months.

Asian people were 2.2 times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites, compared with a rate of 2.1 in the previous 12 months. In the different category of police “stops”, black peo- ple were 2.5 times more like- ly to be stopped than whites, the figures for England and Wales showed.

In all, 955,000 stop and searches were carried out in the year under the main Police and Criminal Evidence Act powers, the highest figure for seven years. The number of stop and searches carried out on black and Asian people rose more than the number carried out on whites - about a 12 per cent increase for both ethnic groups compared with a 9 per cent rise for whites. The most common rea- sons given for a stop and search was for drugs and for stolen property.