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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think you should be able to have a quiet drink in a pub without being strip searched?

93 replies

WhiteTrash · 05/10/2011 19:10

My brother was with some friends in a local pub when police burst in for a drugs raid. All the males were taken in to the male toilets and strip searched. Right down to squatting and being asked to pull his bum cheeks apart. The girls were taken by female officers into the female cubicles but my brother doesnt know the extent if their search.

My brother and his friends had nothing on them (they only went in for a quiet pint) and no arrests were made.

I was shocked when I heard, I couldnt believe my brother had to do that. I felt the police were BU. My mum seems to think fairs fair and if the police need to raid, they need to raid. Its just a bummer (no pun intended) that my brother was there at the time.

What do you think?

OP posts:
Original poster
WhiteTrash · 05/10/2011 20:09

I think I remember him saying he had the choice of there or the station. But Im not 100% about that bit.

OP posts:
booyhoo · 05/10/2011 20:09

well if he is being honest then he needs to complain about that. he should have known he had a choice to refuse and be taken into police custody if they suspected him of holding drugs.

as far as he knows some men told him to strip in the pub toilets and looked up his bum. there is no paper record of this happening. what if one of them had assaulted him during the search and there is no record of any search, where those officers were during that time?? not on!!

booyhoo · 05/10/2011 20:10

xpost. so he did get a choice then!!! he could have refused and gone to the station. why leave out such a relevant piece of information?

Original poster
WhiteTrash · 05/10/2011 20:17

Boohoo sorry.

I guess because he still would have been strip searched anyway. So the question still stands, should a guy not be able to have a quiet pont in a pub without being strip searched?

OP posts:
booyhoo · 05/10/2011 20:22

yes, people should be able to have a quiet drink in a pub without being strip searched. but i'm still struggling with the idea that the entire pub was strip searched in the toilets. no arrests made so i am assuming no-one refused the search. hard to believe really that out of a whole pub full of people, no-one refused a search in the loos, they all just complied with this ridiculous request? no-one kicked up a fuss.

booyhoo · 05/10/2011 20:24

i just couldn't see it happening. not in any of the pubs i've ever been in, even the smaller ones with only 20 or so people in. i couldn't imagine all of them agreeing to it.

VivaLeBeaver · 05/10/2011 20:25

I watched one of those police documentaries once, roadwars or similar and they strip searched someone in the back of a police van. Proper strip search. He was given the option of going down the station. So it does happen.

I'd be really unhappy if it happened to me.

Original poster
WhiteTrash · 05/10/2011 20:27

No I agree I wouldnt have agreed to it! Id have gone mental. But I wonder if Id have done when I was 18-19? (the age of my brother and his friends).

OP posts:
Original poster
WhiteTrash · 05/10/2011 20:33

He just said they didnt give him a choice to go to the station. Although its now going to sound as though Im back tracking. Im really not!

OP posts:
Original poster
WhiteTrash · 05/10/2011 20:34

Well, I am but only because my assumption that he had a choice was wrong.

OP posts:
booyhoo · 05/10/2011 20:47

what sort of pub is it? young people or or old man's pub?

Catkinsthecatinthehat · 05/10/2011 20:55

To back up the OP, here's a news story about a similar raid. Seems the police can do what she stated

www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/General-News/Strip-search-raid-reveals-fish-tank-tabs

LaurieFairyCake · 05/10/2011 21:04

In custody does not just mean in a station, it can mean in the custody of officers.

Original poster
WhiteTrash · 05/10/2011 21:12

It definitely wouldnt have been an old mans pub.

OP posts:
Original poster
WhiteTrash · 05/10/2011 21:14

That wasnt the one. I think it was Camberley or Aldershot. Just because he said 'his local' which would have been camberley or aldershot hes just moved from one 'tother.

OP posts:
malinois · 05/10/2011 21:18

If this did happen he should be on to the IPCC like a shot. I still find it unbelievable that he was strip searched in a pub toilet but the links posted above suggest it does happen. The fact that he has no paperwork suggest this search was improperly carried out and it needs further investigation.

Original poster
WhiteTrash · 05/10/2011 21:21

I did say that too him when I was texting him earlier and he just said 'lol I know. How are you and the kids?" so he cant be that bothered about it. It seems ita bothering me a lot more than it bothers him!

OP posts:
booyhoo · 05/10/2011 21:23

laurie surely he would still need to have been arrested in order to be in police custody though? taking him to a toilet isn't the same as being in police custody is it?

SuchProspects · 05/10/2011 21:33

Dawndonna "Unless they had a warrant, with his name on it, what they did was illegal."

That's not true. If they had a warrant issued by a judge that named the pub and stated they were searching for drugs the police could legally search the premises and anyone in it to the extent necessary (which, for drugs, would include strip searching) to discover if there are drugs there or not.

In theory the judge is the guardian of the public in this sort of case and should be insisting the information the police have that there are drugs likely to be on the property (including held by anyone on the property) is compelling enough to make this sort of intrusion into people's lives acceptable. In practice in my (now quite ancient) experience judges often pretty much rubber stamped warrants unless it was for somewhere they or their friends were likely to be.

VivaLeBeaver · 05/10/2011 22:10

Surely if you had a fairly small quantity of drugs you could push it up your bum far enough that a parting of the bum cheeks wouldn't reveal it. I reckon if I was faced with a potential jail sentence I could get a small package past my sphincter.

BatsUpMeNightie · 05/10/2011 22:13
onagar · 05/10/2011 22:15

I thought it was illegal too, but having checked a number of news articles it seems it is not.

Not a very nice country we live in is it.

VivaLeBeaver · 05/10/2011 22:17

Ah, I considered this Bats. It would come surfing out on the end of your next poo. Whether or not you rescue it is up to you.

VivaLeBeaver · 05/10/2011 22:18

And if you're a lady with a wizards sleeve of a fanjo you could hide a nine bar of cannabis no problem.