Met Police faces questions over increase in child strip-searches

THE Metropolitan Police’s use of “intrusive and traumatising” strip-searches of children are rising every year and most result in no further action, the children’s commissioner has found.

Dame Rachel de Souza said data showed 650 children were stripsearched between 2018 and 2020. Almost a quarter (23 per cent) took place without an adult present despite such tactics only being permitted by law in cases of “utmost urgency”.

More than half (53 per cent) resulted in no action, suggesting many were not justified, said Dame Rachel. And case numbers had almost trebled in three years, from 117 in 2018 to 299 in 2020.

The children’s commissioner said she was “deeply shocked and concerned” by the data, which showed 58 per cent of strip-searched children were black, and more than 95 per cent were boys.

She said the figures suggested “systemic problems around child protection” in the Met after the scandal of child Q, the 15-year-old girl who was strip-searched at school without an adult present by four female Met Police officers while on her period after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis. A review by the local Safeguarding Children Partnership (CHSCP) said the strip-search should never have happened and racism “was likely to have been an influencing factor”.

The four officers are being investigated for gross misconduct by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). Scotland Yard has apologised.

Since then, the IOPC has confirmed it is investigating four further stripsearches of children between early 2020 and 2022, and is considering whether to look into three more.

Dame Rachel said: “I remain unconvinced that the Metropolitan Police is consistently considering children’s welfare and well-being.”

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said it was working “at pace” to ensure children subject to intrusive searches were dealt with “appropriately and respectfully”.