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A POLICE force being shortlisted for a diversity award — after recently hiring just one black officer — is “not a cause for celebration,” leading campaigner Lee Jasper told the Star yesterday.
West Midlands Police have been nominated in the “diverse companies” category, with the winner to be announced on Friday.
Out of 162 other recently recruited officers, 139 were white, 13 were Asian, seven were mixed race and two did not disclose their ethnicity.
Around 7 per cent of residents in Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton identify as black.
“West Midlands Police being nominated … actually makes a mockery of these diversity awards,” said Mr Jasper, national co-chair of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts.
“A solitary black officer in a huge metropolitan area is more reminiscent of 1950s Britain, rather than Britain in 2015. It’s not cause for celebration, but cause for condemnation.”
West Midlands police and crime commissioner David Jamieson admitted earlier this year that the force “clearly needs to do more” to diversify staff in order to reflect the people it serves.
