800 children strip-searched

HUNDREDS of children were stripsearched in custody by police during the past year .

Officers ordered 791 youngsters to remove all or some of their clothes in the 12 months to July. Only 35 searches – 4 per cent – found drugs or weapons.

Experts have called for an urgent review of the practice, which saw three under18s given full-body searches under medical supervision and a further 6,000 standard searches carried out on children as young as nine.

Claire Lightowler, director of the Scottish Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice, said: ‘The fact that 96 per cent of strip searches and 100 per cent of intimate searches of children did not find anything of concern reveals that the practice should be urgently reviewed. Removing any child’s clothes and visually examining their bodies will be traumatic but potentially even more traumatic for children who more regularly come into contact with the police.

‘They tend to be our most vulnerable and victimised children.’

Superintendent Gregor Fitzcharles, of Police Scotland’s criminal justice service division, said: ‘A strip search is carried out in custody where there is a suggestion a person may be concealing controlled drugs or other potentially harmful articles.

‘The main basis for undertaking a strip search is for the care and welfare of that person to ensure they do not come to harm.’