FOUR British police officers do not have a single black officer, Home Secretary Theresa May revealed yesterday.

She said Cheshire, Durham, Dyfed-Powys, and North Yorkshire forces were “simply not good enough.”

Durham and Dyfed Powys hit back at the claims made to the National Black Police Association based on statistics collected in March, saying they have one black officer each.

Ms May said no force had an ethnic profile reflecting its local patch, while female officers accounted for 28 per cent of all forces but 51 per cent of the population.

And 14 of the 43 forces employed no female black officers at all.

But police forces have been “stripped almost bare” by a 20 per cent cut to funding since 2010, said Police Federation of England Wales chair Steve White.

Further swingeing cuts are also expected following a spending review in November.

Black Activists Rising Against Cuts cofounder Lee Jasper warned that the cuts have prevented more black officers being hired to replace those who have left.

He told the Star: “The Home Secretary is neither serious nor committed to the issue of race equality.

“She is using this as an opportunity to bludgeon the police service.

“Ms May, as well as Boris Johnson and [Met commissioner] Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, are cynically using race equality as a political football to distract from brutal cuts soon to be made.”

Ms May also laid into Sir Bernard — who Mr Jasper said was “entirely silent” over previous funding cuts — in a row over the use of “stop and search” powers.

The commissioner claimed earlier this year that escalating knife crime in London was down to curbs on stop-and-search powers.

Ms May branded that a “knee-jerk reaction.”

Black people are seven times more likely to be apprehended than white people, while only one in 10 searches leads to an arrest.