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.

Fucking grim, this is the worst thing I’ve read today and there’s a war going on.
As for @RichPetunia, dismissing a report that states racism, I have no words other than you’re not really welcome here. 😡

That poor poor girl. I hope heads roll and she gets a massive payout from this. It won't undo what's done, but she at least deserves money to support her get through it.

@Bananarice

I think they sent her home in a taxi when they realised she probably had dried period blood on her legs. They refused to let her go to the toilet to clean herself up.

Agreed but I wonder if that was the only reason? Getting a taxi alone was a big deal for me at that age. I really think they hoped she wouldn’t say anything to her mum.

If I was a teacher and saw a child in distress, I would call her mum or dad. They didn’t do that. Why, I wonder.

I hope at least the police officers, teacher and school nurse gets fired.

Me too.

I am mixed race. I can categorically say that the darker your skin, the worse society treats you. I am second generation Windrush, which has diluted my experience of racism, but still, I have had to have therapy to try to deal with the many racist incidents I have experienced in my life.
I absolutely agree that this would not have happened to a white girl, and I hope she gets the justice she deserves.

@LotusCheesecake

Will the name of the school come out do you think? How many secondary schools are there in hackney anyway?

@LotusCheesecake was just discussing this with DP but I definitely think so. All it takes is for enough pupils to realise this is a huge story and come onto social media saying 'this is my school' and outing the school. I give it a few days as this school needs to be named and shamed

For those that don’t believe it really happened - it is now on the BBC website:-

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60757031

It's just been reported on BBC News at 10.

I knew what this thread would be about.

I feel sickened and my heart bleeds for that poor girl. Absolutely NOT surprised that this was the Met, though (and I say that as a white middle-aged, middle class woman, who therefore falls into a category of having a way lower risk of being victimised by them). But also, wtf did the school think they were playing at??

This child has been violated and assaulted and there simply must be justice for her. I’d like to see a crowd funder for her to sue every fucker involved and pay for as much therapy as she needs to try to come to terms with this.

This is absolutely awful, poor girl and it’s hard to imagine that this won’t cause emotional damage to her.

I hope those who did this are suitably punished.

I don’t know how many adult men they strip search for this, but seeing how so many white men seem to wander around town centres with a joint in their mouths and police walk past..l this is so wrong

It has just been on the BBC News at 10, maybe that makes it real now

I was a white girl {Now a woman} and was homeless as a teenager.
I can assure you police stripped searched me in a really humiliating way on a several occasions, simply as I was thin {hungry} and they assumed I must have been on some sort of drug.

Being taken to the police station {Vine Street, London} was awful.

Is there any ''Nice'' way to be strip searched?

I think not.

They didn't find anything.

As a girl, I felt powerless, I doi wonder if they did it to keep numbers of people they searched up?

They did seem to strip search a number of young women who were also homeless.

Police Women did the actual searching, but if one made a fuss, it was ''Do you want me to call the Sgt. in?''

As a teenager, with no idea, I just blindly complied.

The poor girl should have said she is related to an oligarch.
Then the corrupt and rapist police would have protected her from themselves.

ACAB

@Dashel

This is absolutely awful, poor girl and it’s hard to imagine that this won’t cause emotional damage to her.

I hope those who did this are suitably punished.

I don’t know how many adult men they strip search for this, but seeing how so many white men seem to wander around town centres with a joint in their mouths and police walk past..l this is so wrong

I think you are right, in your last sentence. Girls are easy targets.

It’s the fact that they did this in a school, aided and abetted by the teaching staff, that makes this so shocking.
^^This. The police didn't even feel the need to take her to a police station they just went for it there and then. All teaching staff have been through safeguarding training so why did they let it happen? They condoned the assault when they provided a room. I'm devastated for her.

It has just been a brief item on BBC 10pm news.

It’s even worse than I thought.

Seriously, just seriously WTF.
Reading the article made my blood boil. The poor girl, glad she has a supportive family.

From a young age I knew racism existed. I only ever experienced it in the most blatent forms such as people taking their kids away when we were playing, or not allowing them to sit next to me.

Growing up as a young woman, I was turned away from so many job promotions, that went to inexperienced people who happened to look a particular way. At the time I just thought I wasnt good enough for the roles. However in hindsight it really wasnt that, I was good enough to fill the equal opportunity quota but unfortunately my brown skin meant I wasnt good enough for a managerial role.

Theses days, I see It all around, I experience on a frequent basis and its fucking draining, it really is.
I worry about the children of the future.

@RichPetunia

Seems extreme. Where’s the evidence this happened?

Why would the Met Police apologise if it hadn't happened? They're not Prince Andrew.

The Daily Mail has a decent account with quotations from the review and from Council officials:

Councillor Anntoinette Bramble, deputy mayor and cabinet member for Hackney Council's Children's Services, and the mayor of Hackney, Philip Glanville, said they were 'appalled' by all aspects of the review.

In a joint statement they said: 'Child Q was subjected to humiliating, traumatising and utterly shocking treatment by police officers - actions that were wholly disproportionate to the alleged incident to which they had been called.

'This is exacerbated by the fact that the strip search was carried out at school - a place where the child had an expectation of safety, security and care.

'Instead, she was let down by those who were meant to protect her.'

The police must 'stop inexcusable behaviours and mindsets in order to properly serve all our diverse communities', they added.

They have asked for a report in six to nine months on progress made regarding the review's eight findings and 14 recommendations.

These include calls for the Department for Education to make more explicit reference to safeguarding in its guidance on searching, screening and confiscation, and for police guidance on strip searching children to clearly outline the need for a focus on safeguarding.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10616467/Met-Police-strip-searched-black-girl-school-thought-smelled-cannabis.html

@Dashel

This is absolutely awful, poor girl and it’s hard to imagine that this won’t cause emotional damage to her.

I hope those who did this are suitably punished.

I don’t know how many adult men they strip search for this, but seeing how so many white men seem to wander around town centres with a joint in their mouths and police walk past..l this is so wrong

I was wondering similar.

The whiff of weed is pretty much omnipresent in my leafy part of SW London, but the local plod couldn’t give less of a shit.

You have to wonder whether there’s a sense that it’s ok for Tarquin and Clementine to smoke the odd bit of whacky baccy once they’ve clocked off from the estate agency, but this can’t be turned a blind eye to once it might be a black person involved...

This is abuse of power in its purest form. The professionals involved have lost their humanity. I really hope that the young girl can move forwards from being so let down by those who are meant to protect her.

How many professionals who have had safeguarding training deemed this to be ok? Thats whats breathtakingly appalling.

How the fuck does that happen? Oh they just viewed her as more streetwise, because of her ethnicity so did that to her?

I hope her family sue the arse of the LEA, and the met police and has some money behind her to start her life with.

Absolutely disgusting that this has happened

Nothing the Met does shocks me, rotten to the core organisation full of bigots that needs to be completely rebuilt

Im a black woman, we don’t have it easy and sadly this does not surprise me. I hope the Police officers lose their jobs

This is horrendous. That poor girl. Shame on every adult involved in this.