Hale was stopped and searched for “looking spaced”, “walking with a limp” and “looking to the sky”, according to a written record of the stop and search
Hale was walking around his neighbourhood in Camberwell, south
London, on Sunday 7 July when a police car pulled over and two officers stopped and handcuffed him. “They asked me why I thought they were stopping me. I jokingly said: ‘Because I had a wonky eye,’ and the female officer who apprehended me said yes
The police took Hale’s wallet and phone and asked if he was on drugs, Hale said. “The assumption was that there is something criminally wrong with my body,” he said. “I felt like I didn’t meet a certain benchmark of what normality is.”
The police eventually took off the handcuffs and let Hale go. “They weren’t apologetic about it, they acknowledged it in a very brisk way. The female officer said we’d let you go because you’ve got a problem. And the other officer said these are things that have been going on since you were born. It just felt like you weren’t really a person. It was degrading.”
Simon Messinger, a borough commander with the Met, said: “Officers stopped a man on suspicion of possession of drugs in Southampton Street in Camberwell on Sunday 7 July and carried out a search. The gentleman in question made the officers aware that he had a disability affecting his movement. No drugs were found and he was then free to go on his way.”