Children’s commissioner urges police forces to submit child strip-search data
Friday, October 14, 2022
Dame Rachel de Souza has called on police forces in England and Wales to submit data on the number of strip-searches carried out on children, in the wake of the Child Q case.
The children's commissioner for England has written to all police forces asking for the numbers of strip-searches carried out on children between 2018 and July 2022, and is due to release a full analysis of the data in early 2023.
-
Our new Prime Minister must act to safeguard the rights of children
-
Child Q: Labour pledges mandatory rules around strip searching children
A previous analysis of Metropolitan Police data, conducted by de Souza in August, found that 650 children were strip-searched in London between 2018 and 2020.
Some 23 per cent of these incidents did not have an appropriate adult – such as a parent, social worker or volunteer – present, even though it is mandatory under the Police and Criminal Evidence act 1984, the analysis found.
The children’s commissioner set out recommendations to improve the safeguarding of children following the report, which included amendments to national guidance, improved training, increased transparency and building on the roles of safeguarding partnerships.
She said: “To reassure myself that these issues are not more widespread, I am using my unique statutory powers to ask all police chief officers in England and Wales to collect further information on the conduct of this practice across the country.
“I firmly believe that a police power that is as intrusive and traumatic for children as a strip search must be treated with the utmost care and responsibility. It must also be accompanied by a robust and transparent system of scrutiny to protect and safeguard vulnerable children.”
De Souza's focus on strip search follows national uproar over the case of Child Q, a 15-year-old girl who was removed from an exam at her school in east London and strip-searched by police officers whilst on her period.
No other adult was present, and her parents were not contacted.
Child Q had been wrongfully accused of possessing cannabis.
The children’s commissioner has since pledged to ensure intimate searches are only carried out when "absolutely justified, in cases where there is immediate risk of harm to the child, or someone else, and that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect children during and following incidents of strip-searching".
The Met Police is currently subject to a number of independent inquiries related to the strip-searching of children, including Child Q.