Jermaine Jenas ‘disgusted’ after 16-year-old stopped at gunpoint by four armed police

Jermaine Jenas was left ‘disgusted’ after seeing footage of a 16-year-old who was stopped at gunpoint by armed police during the filming of his new documentary.

The former footballer met people with personal experience of the controversial stop and search police power for Channel 4 documentary The Truth About Police Stop and Search.

As the documentary points out, Black men are nine times more likely to be stopped and searched than white men in England and Wales.

The documentary sees Jermaine discuss the realities of the power with 40 volunteers who had all been stopped and searched, some of them at the age of just 7. A total of 39 of them experienced their first stop before they were 18.

Jermaine says in the documentary, stop and search is ‘the power to legally stop, question and search individuals if there are reasonable grounds to suspect they are doing something illegal.’

One case saw him talk to the show’s youngest contributor Jamar, who was held at gunpoint by four police at the age of just 16 after ‘fitting the description of a man with a sword’ they were searching for.

However, as Jamar explained, the police were looking for ‘a Black male in a full black tracksuit and a black coat’. Jamar had been wearing a ‘grey jeans, white trainers, a white top and a grey coat’ on the night the incident took place.

He then explained how the police proceeded to handcuff every member of his friendship group apart from his friend Ben, the only member of the group present who was white.

‘I’m disgusted, I really am,’ Jermaine said. ‘Never in a million years did I expect to see a 16-year-old on his knees with guns pointed at his head and a taser pressed to his neck.’

Jermaine also recalled the time he was left in tears after being stopped and searched at the age of just 10.

Discussing his own experiences growing up in Nottingham, Jermaine said: ‘I’ve been stopped over 10 times, mostly when I was just starting out as a young footballer, which really affected me.

‘I was 10 years old and a police car’s come flying up and told us to empty our pockets. I was like: “I’ve got nothing on me. I’m a kid.”’

He added: ‘I remember going home to my dad. I was nervous. I think I was crying because my dad and mum pretty much drilled into my head as a kid that if I got into trouble I wasn’t going to make I was never going to make it as a footballer.

‘There were no positive encounters I had as a young man. From that point on, I was then Jermaine Jenas the footballer with a bit of money in my back pocket, buying nice cars and I was stopped on a regular basis.’

The Truth About Police Stop & Search airs on Monday at 10pm on Channel 4.

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