Officers' morale `badly damaged'

SENIOR POLICE chiefs are frightened of offending Britain's ethnic communities because of "political correctness", the journal of the Police Federation has claimed.

An editorial in Police says morale among officers has been "enormously damaged" by the unwillingness of their leaders to defend them against charges of racism in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry.

It says: "In falling over each other to proclaim their liberal credentials, some senior officers are bringing the entire area of police relations with minorities into ridicule and contempt."

It blames political correctness for senior officers' refusal to justify the disproportionate number of black people stopped and searched. The reason, it suggests, is that: "black people are also `over-represented' among convicted criminals..."