Met Police chief reflects on Baroness Casey report

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A report by the Children’s Commissioner for England found widespread non-compliance guidelines in place to protect children during strip searches. Yet, the numbers show that over half were conducted without a required third-party adult present with some carried out in public view. The prevalence of the practice was unevenly spread across Britain, but overall, Black children were disproportionately affected, leading to further calls of racism within the police.

In 2020, a 15-year-old black girl from Hackney was strip-searched by two female police officers in school on suspicion of cannabis possession. 

A report into the incident by City & Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership found Child Q was forced to expose intimate body parts without another adult present. No drugs were found.

The Children’s Commissioner for England is a non-departmental public body tasked to “promote and protect the rights of all children”. Having led the office since 2021, Dame Rachel de Souza investigated Child Q’s case last year. 

In August, her report concluded that the Met suffered from “systemic problems with transparency, scrutiny and non-compliance with guidelines” when it came to using their stop and search powers on children.

Alongside a damning indictment of the capital’s police force – still reeling this week from The Baroness Casey Review that found evidence of “institutional racism, sexism and homophobia” – the Children’s Commissioner was also prompted to examine the issue nationwide.

Dame de Souza said her findings had “kept her awake at night”, describing them as “deeply concerning” upon their release on Monday.

Under stop-and-search powers, officers are allowed to confront individuals so long as they have “reasonable grounds” to suspect they are carrying drugs, a weapon or stolen goods. When carried out on children, however, special guidelines must be followed.

With 39 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales responding to the request for data, a total of 2,847 strip searches of young people aged between eight and 17 were carried out between mid-2018 and 2022.

Law enforcement can make physical contact with a child and force them to remove their clothing, but an “Appropriate Adult” must be present except in situations of “urgency”. The research found this was not the case in over half (52 percent) of cases.

Guidelines also state that searches must be conducted as quickly as possible, and minimise potential embarrassment by not making the child take off all their clothes at the same time. In six percent of cases, an officer of a different gender than the child was present.

Location is also an important factor. They must be performed out of public view – something found not to be the case in one percent of all searches – and not in a police vehicle or school, yet 14 were. Cause for “serious concerns about the poor quality of record-keeping”, the location was not specified for 45 percent of all cases.

Dame de Souza said: “I find it completely unacceptable that police forces in England and Wales are largely unable to account for the necessity, circumstance and safeguarding outcome of every strip search of a child that they conduct. 

“I will not accept that the power to strip search is being used responsibly until that is the case.”

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The Met was found to have carried out more strip searches of minors than any other police force in Britain – their tally of 891 accounting for 31 percent of the total – followed by the Hertfordshire Constabulary (202) and Thames Valley Police (181).

In terms of the characteristics of the children themselves, almost all (95 percent) were boys. The average child was 16-years-old, with the likelihood of being strip-searched increasing with age.

According to the report, Black children were six times more likely to be targeted – making up 38 percent of all strip searches – while White children were roughly half as likely than average to be stopped. 

Commenting on the findings, Save the Children’s Director of UK Impact Dan Paskins said: “This is racism against children, and as such a grave violation of their rights.”

The analysis also cites survey findings which showed just 36 percent of Black children trusted the police, compared to 75 percent of White children.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Strip search is one of the most intrusive powers available to the police. No one should be subject to a strip search on the basis of race or ethnicity and safeguards exist to prevent this.

“We take the concerns raised about children’s safeguarding extremely seriously. The Independent Office for Police Conduct is currently investigating several high-profile incidents of strip search of children and it is vital that we await their findings.”

Ms de Souza is advocating for “reform of a culture that has allowed this to go unchallenged” and increased “oversight and inspection” to ensure proper practices are complied with going forward.

She said: “I want us to get to a place where if a police officer encounters a child late at night and suspects they might be carrying drugs or a weapon, their first thought is “What can I do to keep this child safe?”

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