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The Met police strip searches detainees as much as 80% more than other police forces, Byline Times can reveal, as a government report found the controversial practice is still being misused four years on from the “shocking” case of a black school girl being searched while menstruating.
According to Home Office data, the Met strip-searched just under 18% of its 97,697 male detainees and nearly 14% of its 15,302 female detainees during the 2022-2023 financial year. That compares to a national average of 10.1% – for men – and 9.6% for female detainees. Data for 2023-2024 has not yet been released.
A full ‘Strip Search’ can only occur in a police station after arrest and must be performed by an officer of the same sex, according to guidance. A ‘More Thorough Search’ – requiring the removal of a shirt, but not exposing intimate parts of the body – can take place in a police van. ‘More Thorough searches’ involving exposure of intimate parts of the body may be carried out only at a nearby police station or other location which is out of public view.
The findings come a day after nationwide figures revealed that black children are four times more likely to be strip-searched by police officers across England and Wales than white children.
A report by the Children’s Commissioner also found that children under the age of 15 are a bigger proportion of those subjected to intimate searches – according to figures from the year to June 2023 – and that fewer than half of all searches of children in that year (45%) were conducted in the presence of an appropriate adult, which is required.
The report released Monday also found that over the five years to June 2023, children as young as eight have been strip-searched every 14 hours by police in England and that more than 3,000 intimate procedures were conducted on children between January 2018 and June 2023.
The report warned that the use of strip searches on children was frequently “unnecessary, unsafe and under-reported” and that police oversight of the practice had gotten worse in recent years, rather than better.
The Children’s Commissioner report cited one case of a 14-year-old boy who was strip-searched while in custody in the South of England. There was no appropriate adult during the search and afterwards, the child was “left naked” in his cell.
In the wake of the new figures, the Met admitted that “too many strip searches carried out are unnecessary, unsafe and under-reported”.
The force’s use of the practice has become increasingly controversial in recent years after the case of a teenage girl, later known as Child Q, hit the headlines.
The 15-year-old black girl was strip-searched at school while menstruating, without an appropriate adult being present in December 2020 after police wrongly accused her of carrying cannabis. The girl has since begun self-harming and has said she does not know if she will “ever feel normal again”.
The case came to light two years later after a local council safeguarding review cited racial discrimination as a factor in the child’s treatment. While the Met apologised at the time, a disciplinary hearing for the officers involved has still not been conducted nearly four years later.
Children’s Commissioner, Rachel de Souza, said urgent procedural change was needed to tackle widespread racial disparity and to ensure that children are not left at risk during intimate searches. However, she added that “we are seeing some green shoots of progress in how the police carry out and record strip searches on children”.
“Today’s research serves as a stark reminder that this (Child Q case) is not an isolated issue in the capital. A much higher threshold should be met before a child is subjected to a humiliating and traumatising intimate search,” she added.
De Souza’s report confirmed that the numbers of strip searches are lower overall, especially in London, while the majority of forces are reporting changes to procedures and a fall in the proportion of black children subjected to strip searches between 2022 and 2023.
Jodie Bradshaw, policy advocacy lead for policing reform campaign group StopWatch, told Byline Times that the Met’s track record to date “does not offer reassurance that strip searches will be used proportionately and effectively” and that left to the “police’s discretion, strip searches are ripe for misuse”.
Bradshaw added: “Far from working to build public trust, these abuses of power only reinforce the perception of the Metropolitan Police as institutionally racist.
“The abhorrent case of Child Q’s treatment is just one example that reached public awareness.
“The power to strip search and the discretion left to officers to determine the appropriateness of the measure has equipped the force with the means to continue their over-policing of racialised groups.”
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson acknowledged that searches were “intrusive” but told Byline Times the force only used the tactic when “there is a risk of serious harm”.
They added that the force had “introduced a new policy to improve these types of searches in May 2022, including the requirement of Inspector authorisation, mandatory safeguarding referrals and new guidance for officers”.
Responding to the Children’s Commissioner report, Assistant Chief Constable Andrew Mariner, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for stop and search, said that two years on from the “shocking case” of Child Q, progress is being made.
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In a statement, he said: “I welcome this shift, and I am cautiously optimistic about the potential to overcome entrenched systemic challenges, but there is still urgent work to be done: too many strip searches carried out are unnecessary, unsafe and under-reported.
“I am particularly reassured by the progress in London by the Metropolitan Police, but today’s research serves as a stark reminder that this is not an isolated issue in the capital. A much higher threshold should be met before a child is subjected to what we know can be a traumatising search.
“This summer we have seen the vital importance of responsive, trusted policing in our communities. We need a culture of trust to be built between children and the police, so it’s vital that improvements continue, with fewer searches carried out, better data recording when they do, and that good practice and improvements are identified and modelled across the country.”