More than 550 stop and search checks have been conducted in Redbridge since the end of last year, the latest figures reveal.

Insp Lee Canter presented the stop and search figures for December 13 last year to March 13 at a Redbridge Safer Neighbourhood Board meeting in the Jack Carter Centre, in Hainault, on April 11.

Of 554 checks that took place, around a fifth led to arrests (108).

Drugs were the most common reason for stop and search, followed by stolen property and offensive weapons.

Asian was the most common ethnicity checked at 34pc, followed by Afro-Caribbean at 23pc.

White Europeans make up 22pc of those checked and dark Europeans 13pc.

Arabic and Chinese made up 3.6pc and 0.2pc respectively.

Insp Canter clarified the ethnic classifications used.

“There is how police quickly describe people for operational reasons,” he said.

“And then you have self-defined ethnicity, which breaks it down a lot more.

“So these are very crude.”