A Brent campaign group has won its bid to give residents more time to have their say on how police use stop and search powers.

The Home Office has agreed to extend its public consultation by six weeks after discussions with Brent Stop and Search Monitoring Group.

This means people now have until September 24 to complete a revised and shortened consultation on the controversial policing tool.

BSSMG had previously criticised the Home Office for launching the consultation over the summer when young people in education cannot be reached via their institutions.

Roy Croasdaile, vice-chairman of BSSMG, said: “Our efforts to delay the deadline is intended to attract the attention of more of those people who are most affected and obtain a sample of opinions from the community to gauge how to improve the stop and search experience, improve the culture of stop and search and also the supervision and training for officers.”

He added: “Thousands of people are stopped and searched in Brent every year and we do not know much about what people think about it in general or the conduct of specific stop and search encounters because people do not complain or have the confidence in the complaints system to complain.

BSSMG is appealing to the government and The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) for funding to promote the consultation and publicise the issues surrounding stop and search.

Visit www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office to take part in the consultation.

Visit Brent Stop and Search Monitoring Group on Facebook.