Children as young as 10 strip-searched by Met
FORCE FACES CRITICISM IN THE LIGHT OF CHILD Q INCIDENT
THE Metropolitan Police stripsearched children as young as 10 years old in nearly 600 searches carried out on under-18s between 2018 and 2021, according to new data.
Strip-searches require the subject to expose intimate parts of their body so officers can look for illegal items.
London Assembly Green party member Caroline Russell, who obtained the data from the Met, told the Evening Standard she was disturbed by the number of children strip-searched by police.
It comes after a Hackney schoolgirl known as Child Q was forced to remove her sanitary towel and expose her genitals to officers – without an adult present – after her teacher wrongly suspected her of having cannabis during an exam.
The figures show four children aged between 10 and 12 were stripsearched in the past four years.
A further 135 children aged between 13 and 15, and 452 aged 16 or 17, were also strip-searched by police in the same period between 2018 and the end of 2021.
The strip-searches were all carried out under stop and search powers.
Child Q is now suing the Met Police and the school for her treatment, which included reinserting her used sanitary towel after the intimate frisking. A safeguarding report found the search of the 15-year-old girl was unjustified and racism was “likely” to have been a factor.
The headteacher of the school stepped down two days ago for health reasons.
Hackney’s Mayor, Philip Glanville has called for the Met Police to take “robust and decisive action” to ensure it never happens again.
He said: “It is incumbent on all of us to ensure that this is taken seriously, and never allowed to happen again. Child Q should have expected to be treated with dignity, respect and her interests as a child protected. It is clear from the report that the school and police officers failed to do that.”