BLACK people are almost ten times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by police on Merseyside.
A report shows 464 black people were stopped and searched by officers in the period April to September 2003.
In the same period 9,335 white people were stopped, according to a report by the Merseyside Police Authority.
But with Merseyside's black population standing at just 6,942 and the white population being 1.3m - the figures reveal that blacks are 9.5 times more likely to be stopped. A spokes-woman for the Commission for Racial Equality condemned the figures.
She said: "Every black and Asian man in this country knows what it is to fear being stopped walking down the street or driving in their car.
"We do not oppose the existence of the stop and search power, but we do deplore the failure to use it fairly and effectively for the whole community's benefit."
The shock figures come despite the tight legal controls on officers carrying out routine stop and search checks introduced earlier this year.
The controls - which include officers having to give anyone they stop a form recording the fact they have been stopped - were implemented in an effort to stop institutional racism in the force. Merseyside Police was one of seven forces chosen by the Government to introduce the practice which is known as Recommendation 61.
The practice came about following the Macpherson report which examined institutionalised racism in the police following the bungled investigation into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.
The report backed police use of stop and search powers, but said their dis-proportionate use against ethnic minority communities had to be stamped out.
Earlier this year, Britain's race watchdog threatened to take legal action against the police under the provisions of the Race Relations Act after figures showed that black and Asian people were up to eight times more likely to be stopped and searched.
Despite black people being much more likely to be stopped by police, the Merseyside force has reported a reduction in the number of people from an ethnic minority background who have been stopped and searched.
The number is down to 464 from 1,265 in 2002 as Merseyside Police recorded a cut of more than 50pc in the number of stop and searches of people from all ethnic backgrounds.
A police spokeswoman said: "Disproportionality in stop search figures remains a national concern and there is work under way called the 'missing millions' which identifies that many people were missed in the 2001 census data and this affects stop search figures."
