The Guardian reports:
The Strasbourg court ruled it was unlawful for police to use the powers, under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, to stop and search people without needing any grounds for suspicion.
The widely-drawn ruling said that not only the use of the counter-terror powers, but also the way they were authorised, were "neither sufficiently circumscribed, nor subject to adequate legal safeguards against abuse".
All it means though is that they just need 'an excuse', they just have to be a bit more careful. 'Someone stopped us and told us they saw someone with a knife' for example.Mind you it should stop them hassling innocent photographers as well!
They stopped my brother last year under 44-2 on his way home from work. Unfortunately since he was working for a company that builds things he had 2 knives in his possessions (one was a stanley knife the other a small pocket knife)... covered in sawdust and glue. This was enough for them to arrest him for several hours (despite it being legal to have knives under a certain length). They held him for about 4 hours before letting him go and now they happily keep his DNA on record for however long they do, despite him never having been charged.Anyways, I should already have left for work.