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British police have been accused of abusing their powers under the so-called stop-and-search act and institutionally performing racism as far as the act is concerned.

A prominent legal advisor said that police officers, who targeted people based on their skin colour alone, should be held accountable for wasting police time and hence misusing public resources, British media reported.

Richard Stone was a leading adviser to the judge who produced the landmark Macpherson report in 1999, which concluded that the Metropolitan police was institutionally racist.

Stone, a member of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry panel, said last week after the sentencing of two of the killers of the black teenager, that prosecuting officers who commit a crime under the act would improve public confidence in stop-and-search.

Stop-and-search policy is coming under increasing scrutiny over claims of "racial profiling".

"It is a crime to waste police time in this country. A racist officer is an incompetent officer, and if they're wasting police time they should be charged", Stone said.

"One black lad said to me, 'They're chasing after me, having a bit of fun because I'm a black boy, but they should be following intelligence", he added.

"That's wasting police time. Why aren't they charging these officers with a crime?"

Macpherson's report, at the time, condemned the Metropolitan Police for failing to defuse tensions between police and the black community in the UK.