This is just shocking (trigger warning -racism)

[iloverock]

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/department-for-education-metropolitan-police-services-scotland-yard-hackney-b988292.html

Please read the formal review.

Essentially the teaching staff called the police because a black 15 year old girl smelt of cannabis. She was taken to a room and strip searched. She was on her period. Her mother wasn't notified. She was not given the opportunity for an appropriate adult to be present.

Why did they even strip search her..she's 15 and on her period. That poor girl. I'm tbh shocked the school and teachers allowed this to happen. Why didn't they call her mum.

I’m fed up of the view that unless you are called the N word or black prefaces an insult it isn’t racism. Racism is so much worse and quieter than that, it’s being ignored while all of your white colleagues are greeted. Its being told your uppity. It’s being told you don’t sound (enter ethnicity). It’s being told your smart for (enter ethnicity). Its being asked where are you really from. It’s being told time and time again racism doesn’t exist while all of the above happens.

Literally couldn't say it better!! Some people think because there's no longer separate water fountains for 'whites' and 'coloured' and white people don't call you the N word to your face that racism suddenly doesn't exist anymore. What a joke

I get that schools will need to call the poilce at times and also that maybe they don't have to notify parents etc, but would assume a strip search would have to take place back at a poilce station and with an appropriate adult present and only with reasonable grounds if suspicion
Im not a teacher but watched enough tv to know a 15 year old can't not have an appropriate adult present , shocking all should be ashamed and I hope the poor girl is given all the help she needs
Its abuse the way it was done

You know, I'm a teacher and I can't imagine allowing this to happen. I can't imagine the circumstances that would make me stand back and allow it to happen. It's upsetting just to think of it. What a harrowing experience for the poor girl.

I'm glad it's being viewed as abuse and racism.

@BeingATwatItsABingThing

I was starting to worry when PP who work in schools said they weren’t surprised or they ‘hoped’ they would have said something. Thank you for restoring a bit of my faith!

The hoped bit was obviously aimed at me. Did you read @Makeitsoso’s post about people’s reactions to authority figures? It’s impossible to know how we would react in these situations. I know I wouldn’t have called the police in the first place.

I’m depressingly familiar with Milgrim and the ‘following orders’ defence, I’m still heartened to hear someone stand up and say there’s no fucking way it would happen on their watch, the world needs more people like that.

I've long said that I think Headteachers have far too much autonomy and not enough accountability, it generally only a Head/Deputy head that can make that call, your average classroom teacher wouldn't be able to do so. So many institutions in this country aren't working the way they should do and it is the same groups of people that bare the brunt of the fallout from systems that are not fit for purpose.

@WeDontTalkAboutBrunoNoNoNo

I've long said that I think Headteachers have far too much autonomy and not enough accountability, it generally only a Head/Deputy head that can make that call, your average classroom teacher wouldn't be able to do so. So many institutions in this country aren't working the way they should do and it is the same groups of people that bare the brunt of the fallout from systems that are not fit for purpose.

But institutional racism doesn't exist according to this government.

*Some pp here are just disgusting. Racism and abuse could be happening in front of their faces but they would question if it was really happening if it was real racism because they had no way to compare with their perception of racism.

There is an article and an official review including the child's account and the trauma she endured. However, these idiotic bitches think it never happened because they say so. You are entitled and twisted.*

Yep! Another great comment!

I don't need a report to tell me that this was a racist incident but the fact that there's been an official report that's been conducted that literally confirmed that this event would likely not have occured if the girl was white. Yet people are STILL saying 'how do you know this wouldn't happen to a white girl' 'why is it racist just because she's black' 'did this really happen,' just shows that there's no hope for this world. The evidence is literally in front of you and some people are still justifying the incident and dismissing the racial element. No wonder people in this country don't believe there's any racism here. They purposely choose to stay ignorant

The fawn response involves rapidly moving to try to please a person to avoid any conflict. This could have accounted for Child Q’s compliance.

Unfortunately this is what black kids are told to do in order to avoid further abuse specially from the police or authorities.

This is utterly vile to read, abhorrent that anyone would think this was acceptable. Have the officers been personally held to account? How could the teachers stand back and not say something and trust that this was the appropriate course of action. No right minded person could surely stand back and allow a 15 year old child to be treated this way.

I just read the report another poster linked. Here is part where I think it is her mother or aunt reporting:

• “Child Q was made to take her pad off, something so personal and exposed in such a way to strangers.”
• “Child Q was racially profiled due to her being black and her extreme large head of locks.”
• “She was made to bend over spread her legs, use her hands to spread her buttocks cheek whilst coughing.”
• “She was not permitted to use the toilet despite asking.”
• “She is now self-harming and requires therapy. She is traumatised and is
now a shell of the bubbly child she was before this incident.”
• “From the time she was pulled out of her exam to the time she returned home, she was isolated, not given food or offered water, where is the
care.”
• “It is now being circulated in her school that she is the big-time drugs
seller.”
• “All the above is related to the police behaviour towards her.”

She had also been a good pupil, at the top of her class; she was pulled out of an exam for this then sent back on after with no comfort given.

It is the sort of thing you would think Nazi women guards did in prison camps. It is not worthy of our society.

It was legal rape I’m my opinion.

And it was all for cannabis.

The really sad thing is that for a lot of kids, school is their only safe space, a few hours of respite from the chaos and abuse, an opportunity to laugh, and joke,to be a kid,to be seen and listened to.

And even when it's not their only safe space, it should still be a safe place and kids should be able to trust the staff. What happened to this poor child is awful, and I can't even imagine her trauma. Her peers (some which might be vulnerable and in need of help/support) have also lost trust in the people that are supposed to help them. Something as horrible and abusive as this will also tear through her peers with unquantifiable consequences.

”In hindsight I put my trust in the law; I know now that I need to understand the law better.”

What a load of shit, you left your pupil alone in a room without an appropriate adult or her mother.

“This is the hardest thing that we’ve had to go through and for anyone to think that the school might be complicit is very stressful and difficult to deal with.”

Who gives a shit how hard it was for you, you WERE complicit by your absence. Stop making it about you.

“In my experience with police [at her previous schools], where there has been a suspicion of carrying drugs or a weapon, and police found it necessary to conduct a search, it would only be a ‘pat down’. I have known drugs to be found in socks or a waistband”

Why would police sequester the child in a room to pat her down? What a load of shit, you let that child down.

“I am an experienced Designated Safeguarding Lead with over 6 years’ experience of safeguarding and liaising with the police to support young people.”

If you’re the experienced lead, God help black girls, they have no hope if you are the best there is.

I’m so horrified and angry at this.... does anyone know what is happening to those responsible? Are there criminal proceedings against them now?

JFC
I'm (sadly) unsurprised by the police's disgusting actions but teachers standing by has truly shocked me.

I can't think of anything that a 15 yr old could do that would make strip searching her a legitimate response never mind without any adult representation.

The school should be named "in loco parentis" my arse.

That poor child.

I agree that the teachers involved and the headteacher should be up before a panel for professional misconduct. They utterly failed that child. They enabled an assault.

Really shocking and sounds more like incidents we hear about in America.It's really worrying that the teachers had such a poor relationship with a pupil that they felt they had to call in the police.
As the other posters said this has to constitute assault.

The details of what she went through are horrific.

It’s child abuse. I’m sickened just thinking about it, I don’t think I’d get over that as an adult, how much worse for a child?

I wonder why they sent her home in a taxi? They just have seen the impact it has on her. The fact that they didn’t inform her mum shows that they hoped the girl wouldn’t say anything to her mum out of shame.

How can this be anything other than racist child abuse?

What an absolute nightmare for that girl. I would like to say I'm surprised but I'm not. The MET are so fucking dirty they are a criminal gang themselves.

’Really shocking and sounds more like incidents we hear about in America’

It does and having police officers being stationed in/closely linked to schools is a huge factor in that.

2.18 Over the same period, 25 children under the age of 18 were subject of ‘further searches’. 19 were male and 18 were handcuffed during the process. The reasons for search primarily related to suspicions about drugs (20), followed by weapons (4) and stolen property (1). 22 (88%) of the searches were negative with an outcome of no further action recorded in 20 (80%) of the cases. In terms of ethnicity, (as per the codes used by the police), 15 (60%) of the children searched were Black, 2 were White, 6 Asian and 2 Arab or North
African.

“Further search” is a police euphemism for a strip search. Strip searched can be making the person spread their legs ( as in this case) or looking in orifices.

That poor girl. I hope she is able to move forward with the help she will need. Knowing girls the same age it breaks my heart to think of something like that happening. I was mortified to hand my midwife my maternity pad for checking (broken waters), I can't imagine the shame of being forced to remove a sanitary pad. I hope everyone responsible for what they did to this child are held accountable. I actually can't believe what I just read. 😥

I have just read the full report and I am horrified. She was viewed as a threat not as a child who needed safeguarding perspective. Damn right there was racism and prejudice involved. Where were the safeguarding leads asking the questions and challenging how on earth a CHILD could be strip searched, spread her bum cheeks whilst on her period because she ‘smelt’ of cannabis.

Funnily enough, I’m black, a head of year in a secondary school and a female. This makes me so sad. And to think the government/Tony Sewell released a report in 2020 claiming there was no/little institutional racism. The Child Q report mentioned the girl had a ‘fawn’ response instead of your typical flight or fight…the report described a fawn response as “moving rapidly to comply”….doesn’t surprise me as she probably didn’t want to be seen as a stereotyped, typical black youth not complying with the police. Also learnt a new phrase from the report ‘adultification bias’ where black/ethnic minority people are seen as adults, less vulnerable or in need of less care than their white peers. It just makes me so sad but not surprised.

Unfortunately this is what black kids are told to do in order to avoid further abuse specially from the police or authorities.

I agree.

She did not have the luxury of standing up for herself or refusing as if this is how she was treated when complying and innocent, imagine how she’d be treated if they thought she was resisting or had something to hide.

@RichPetunia

Seems extreme. Where’s the evidence this happened?

There's been a detailed inquiry which involved interviewing all concerned, including the police officers involved. The Met have apologised and aren't denying it. Where's the evidence that it didn't happen?