Children as young as eight strip-searched by police as ‘deeply concerning’ report shows ‘widespread’ failures

A new report covering England and Wales found children are “being failed by those whose job it is to protect them”
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Children as young as eight are being strip-searched by police officers, according to a report highlighting “deeply concerning practice”.

The report, which details almost 3,000 searches of minors in England and Wales over four years, also found black children were up to six times (38%) more likely to be strip-searched by police compared to the national population, while white children were around half as likely to be searched.

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The vast majority of children strip-searched were boys (95%) while 5% of such searches were carried out on girls. Six per cent of strip-searches were conducted with at least one officer of a different gender than the child being searched present, the report found.

One per cent of strip-searches were conducted “within public view”, with some taking place in police vehicles and schools, a few in takeaways and amusement parks, and in 45% of cases the location was not recorded.

Children as young as eight are being strip-searched by police officers, a report shows (Photo: Getty Images)Children as young as eight are being strip-searched by police officers, a report shows (Photo: Getty Images)
Children as young as eight are being strip-searched by police officers, a report shows (Photo: Getty Images)

The report by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza showed 2,847 strip-searches of children aged between eight and 17 took place between 2018 to mid-2022, and more than half (52%) of the total searches took place without an appropriate adult present.

The presence of an appropriate adult is required by law, except in cases of “urgency”, and is usually a parent or guardian but can also be a social worker, carer or volunteer.

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Dame Rachel said the findings demonstrated “evidence of deeply concerning practice” with “widespread non-compliance” with statutory safeguards, and said children are “being failed by those whose job it is to protect them”. She is now calling for “urgency” to be removed as an exception and said constant supervision should be recommended.

The report also highlighted “deeply concerning ethnic disproportionality”, which Dame Rachel branded as “utterly unacceptable”.

The commissioner ordered the report after the Child Q scandal which came to light last March. A 15-year-old black schoolgirl was strip-searched by police while on her period after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis at school. Scotland Yard apologised and said the strip-search at the girl’s school in 2020 without another adult present “should never have happened”.

Following the scandal Dame Rachel requested figures for strip-searches by the Metropolitan Police force which, when reported last August, showed more than 600 children underwent “intrusive and traumatising” searches over a two-year period, with black boys disproportionately targeted.

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The commissioner said she has “serious concerns about the poor quality of record-keeping, which makes transparency and scrutiny very difficult, and means that the numbers in this report may only be a minimum”.

Dame Rachel said while she accepted that strip-searching children can be necessary in limited situations, it is an “intrusive and potentially traumatic power” which must be subject to “robust safeguards”.

She said: “The additional complexity of conducting these searches during a stop and search should mean that there is a higher degree of scrutiny than if conducted in custody, not less.”

The commissioner said attention on the issue had not come about due to a police whistleblower or a damning inspection report, but “the bravery of a girl to speak up about a traumatic thing that happened to her”, referring to the case of Child Q.

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Dame Rachel warned that officers are too often “forgetting that children are children” as she called for a strengthening of the guidelines around strip-searches, more oversight and inspection to ensure compliance, and reform of a culture “that has allowed this to go unchallenged”.

Among her 17 recommendations, she called on the Home Office to carry out a comprehensive review of the legislative and policy framework for child strip-searches and make specific changes to the Police and Criminal Evidence (Pace) Codes.

Regarding the requirement for an appropriate adult to be present for strip-searches of children in custody and under stop and search powers, she said it must only be “the most exceptional situations where there is serious risk to the child’s life or welfare” where this is not the case.

She also said schools should be excluded as an appropriate location for a strip-search and that they should only be conducted at a nearby police station, medical premises or home address.

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Dame Rachel said the Home Office should require forces to report annually on the strip-searching of children, including recording ethnicity, whether an appropriate adult was present, the specific location and whether a safeguarding referral was made. She added that the National Police Chiefs’ Council should also publish an action plan on reforming stop and search practices, including strip-searches of children.

Dame Rachel 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.”

The Children’s Commissioner’s office said it “eagerly anticipates” recommendations to be made by the Independent Office for Police Conduct which is investigating the Child Q case.

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