Police disclosing suspects’ ethnicity is fuelling prejudice, say campaigners

Police at Huntingdon station after an attack on a train. The Runnymede Trust questioned why the attacker’s race was released and not other more relevant details. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

The police’s decision to reveal the ethnicity and nationality of suspects in high-profile crimes has had a “devastating effect” and is helping to spread prejudice, racial justice campaigners say.

The warning comes from the Runnymede Trust and 50 other groups demanding that the policy in England and Wales is scrapped, in a letter sent to the home secretary and police chiefs on Friday.