The Chase star Shaun Wallace, who is also a barrister, has recalled being stopped by police as he left court following a case.
Appearing on Good Morning Britain, the professional quizzer discussed the Black Lives Matter movement and a series of incidents in which he said he had been forced to show officers his barrister’s robe to prove where he had been.
The 60-year-old, who is of Jamaican descent, said he had been stopped by police “countless times” both as a boy and in recent years.
The Chase's @TheShaunWallace shares his experience of being stopped and searched by police on two separate occasions and shares his advice to young black men who find themselves in a similar situation.
'You've got nothing to fear if you've done nothing wrong.' pic.twitter.com/G29MHqmdmI
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) June 9, 2020
Speaking to Lorraine Kelly via video call, he said: “On two occasions I was coming out of Kingston Crown Court with a solicitor who happened to be white, and I was approached by these plain-clothed police officers
“They said: ‘You fit the profile of a person who was just involved in a robbery.’
“I was simply taken aback and startled, and they said to me ‘Where were you?’ and I said ‘I was at Kingston Crown Court’.
“They asked: ‘Well what were you doing there?’
“I said: ‘Well you can look inside my bag, you’ll see what.’
“And when he saw my robes he was totally astonished.
“On another occasion I was coming from Liverpool Crown Court and I was just getting off the train at Watford Junction.
“Again I was approached by these two plain-clothes police officers and I was a bit startled at why they were coming up to me.
“And again they said the same thing to me.”
Wallace advised black men to respond to officers in a “calm and dignified manner” if stopped.
He said: “What is happening in England has been happening for far too long, is that the way in which young black boys in particular have been stopped and searched has been done in a disrespectful fashion, and the way in which they have been treated has totally disregarded their human rights.”
Wallace added: “I have been stopped countless times, not only in my capacity as a barrister, when I was a young boy growing up I used to be stopped countless times.
“But the one thing I will never ever do is give a police officer an excuse to arrest me.”
He said he felt “empowered and proud” by the youth’s response to the death of George Floyd in the US, the unarmed black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck, sparking protests around the world.