Avon and Somerset Lammy Review watchdog aims to tackle racial bias

Desmond Brown, pictured with PCSO Mohammed Berber at a community meeting in St Pauls, will chair the group

The chair of a new group investigating racial bias in the criminal justice system in Avon and Somerset said he had endured "horrible experiences" himself.

The Lammy Review group for Avon and Somerset will collect data on how black and ethnic minority (BME) people experience judicial processes.

The Bristol group is the first so far to be set up outside London.

Independent chair Desmond Brown said people from those groups were 40% more likely to be stopped by police.

Avon and Somerset's police and crime commissioner Sue Mountstevens said she wanted to respond to the Lammy Review "now rather than wait".

The review by MP David Lammy in 2017 found the justice system in England and Wales was biased in treatment of people from ethnic minority backgrounds, who were more likely to be jailed than some white defendants.

'Always an enemy'

Mr Brown was previously chair of Bristol's Commission for Race Equality and has been a prominent advocate for equality in the city.

He said he had "horrible experiences" of the justice system himself from the age of nine, as a "mixed-heritage man, a black man".

"The criminal justice system was always an enemy in my head", Mr Brown said.

Desmond Brown working with Caine Tayo Lewin-Turner, Clayton Planter and Sibsusiso Tshabala visiting inmates at HMP Leyhill

The group will collect data on how decisions are made at each point of a person's journey through the justice system to understand where any bias is and then challenge it.

Mr Brown said: "The courts don't collect data on ethnicity, only on nationality which makes it hard to understand what happens to a BME person when they enter the (criminal justice system)."

Miss Mountstevens added: "We think we can achieve a lot more locally" by looking at local data over the next two years."

The Ministry of Justice said it hoped to use the regional group's findings to inform central government policy.

The Lammy Review group for Avon and Somerset will start publishing its findings from December.