POLICE stop and search numbers have increased by 25per cent year on year – with drugs found in almost a third of cases and weapons in 11 per cent.

Stolen goods were the most common find – accounting for 39 per cent of all stop and searches where potential offences were discovered.

Dorset's Police and Crime Commissioner, David Sidwick, has defended the use of stop and search as an effective way to fight crime, but says it must be intelligence-led, not random.

He rejected claims from some councillors that the tactic was driving a wedge between young people and the police.

The Commissioner told a Police and Crime Panel meeting in Dorchester that in the first quarter of the financial year there were 541 incidents, compared to 434 over the same period the previous year.

He was responding to a question about the tactic from Weymouth councillor, Louie O'Leary (Con Preston and Littlemoor), who told the meeting that within the past couple of weeks a man in his area was discovered carrying a knife during a stop and search by officers, which he said might have stopped someone from being stabbed.

Cllr O'Leary said he also believed the tactic was useful to combat drugs which he said was now rife, including in his ward.

"74,000 people were arrested in stop and search across the UK last year – that 74,000 arrests which stops crime. It is an effective deterrent," he said.

Cllr Andrew Starr (Lib Dem Lytchett Matravers & Upton) said that while he did no doubt stop and search could be effective it had negative consequences: "it is seen by a lot of youngsters as something which drives a wedge between them and the police so it must be used with caution and appropriately," he said.

Cllr Peter Sidaway ( Lib Dem Broadstone) backed the stance saying that with more than 60 per cent of stops discovering nothing a lot of people must believe they had been targeted unfairly.

Cllr Tony Trent (Lib Dem Alderney & Bourne Valley) raised the record of Dorset Police for minority community searches which he said, in the past, seemed to be based on officers' assumptions.

Mr Sidwick said that the figures for what he described as "disproportionality" had improved in Dorset from 25 to 1, to 10 to 1.

"It's not right yet," he added after giving the figures, telling councillors that there had been multiple conversations between his office and Dorset Police about how stop and searches were carried out – with the ability to view any bodycam video, if it was felt necessary.

"It must be intelligence-led and targeted, proportionate and effective," said the Commissioner… "I'm very clear that stop and search should remain a common tactic to remove weapons and drugs from the streets."

Later he told the meeting: "Stop and search helps keeps the community safe but there is a tension to ensure that it is done properly… inevitably there will be searches where you don't find anything…but we need to search to keep us all safe."