By Cindi John BBC News Online community affairs reporter

A man who was repeatedly stopped and searched by police has spoken out against the increased use of the controversial tactic.

Delroy Lindo was stopped 37 times by police between 1992 and 2001 and charged with 17 offences, but never once convicted.

A report last year found that Metropolitan police officers had targeted the civil rights activist.

Mr Lindo, 42, is currently pursuing a civil claim against the police who he says have never properly apologised to him.

You have people looking at you like you're some kind of criminal when you're stood there in the street, hands up in the air and being frisked up and down.

Delroy Lindo

Speaking to BBC News Online Mr Lindo said that while he welcomed greater accountability there was no justification for increasing the level of stop and searches.

He said: "It's not really good enough that they're going to bring in the accountability and then say because of that they're going to heighten stop and searches.

"I feel that the black community would suffer from them maximising the amount of stop and searching."

Mr Lindo said those who advocated more use of stop and search had obviously never experienced it at the sharp end.

"It's very degrading. You have people looking at you like you're some kind of criminal when you're stood there in the street, hands up in the air and being frisked up and down.

"I've also been stripped searched a number of times in a van parked at the side of the road."

'Degrading'

Mr Lindo rejected a claim made by the editor of the black newspaper, the Voice, that more stop and searches could tackle increasing level of gun crime among young black men.

He said: "At the end of the day the black community have long been racially profiled by the police so the stopping and searching have not stopped the guns and drugs being on the street.

Black newspaper editor Mike Best supported more stop and searches

"It should be more intelligence led than just stopping and searching because the average person going about their daily business is not a criminal."

Funds spent on increasing the number of police officers and building prisons could be spent more effectively elsewhere, Mr Lindo argued.

"What we need is more education, this is where we can start with the young people," he said.

"We need the re-opening of community centres where they've all been closed down and the young people have nowhere to go.

"They say they don't have the money but people would be wiling to go into these centres as volunteers to keep black children out of the police's way and doing something positive."