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.

@RichPetunia

Seems extreme. Where’s the evidence this happened?

Read the fucking report...

[quote HeadPain]mobile.twitter.com/PortiaAntonia/status/1503828061992722434?cxt=HHwWhIC55fPp1d4pAAAA[/quote]
Good. I just hope this story doesn't get lost by the media. It is absolutely appalling.

The Met Police, this is pretty much the level of treatment of women and girls I expect from them. It’s shameful, the organisation is rotten and far too many officers are not fit to be in any position of authority. I hope action is taken against the officers involved but there probably won’t be.
But the school….. her teachers…. It wasn’t a police officer who reported her, who pulled her out of an exam hall, who waited in the corridor knowing what was being done to her, who decided not to phone her mum…. Her teachers allowed her to be sexually assaulted and humiliated,. What was the point in any of their safeguarding training if they thought this was ok? For the school to be whining that being seen as complicit has been difficult for them! The teachers should be sacked, the school should be placed under new management. And that won’t happen either. The name of the school will be kept quiet if they possibly can. I don’t know how those teachers can walk into a classroom knowing what they did

@MotherofTerriers

The Met Police, this is pretty much the level of treatment of women and girls I expect from them. It’s shameful, the organisation is rotten and far too many officers are not fit to be in any position of authority. I hope action is taken against the officers involved but there probably won’t be. But the school….. her teachers…. It wasn’t a police officer who reported her, who pulled her out of an exam hall, who waited in the corridor knowing what was being done to her, who decided not to phone her mum…. Her teachers allowed her to be sexually assaulted and humiliated,. What was the point in any of their safeguarding training if they thought this was ok? For the school to be whining that being seen as complicit has been difficult for them! The teachers should be sacked, the school should be placed under new management. And that won’t happen either. The name of the school will be kept quiet if they possibly can. I don’t know how those teachers can walk into a classroom knowing what they did

The report says that at the time of the incident the school was rated good by ofsted and that safeguarding had been deemed effective. It also refers to the school as an academy. I think that narrows the number of schools it could be right down and it won't be long before it's out.

Agree school staff need to be held to account to, however is very possible the staff who were there at the time are no longer there...

Poor girl. What a terrible thing to happen tona 15y old. I really hope she can turn it around and continue to do well academically and prove those arseholes that profiled and degraded her wrong.

I'm not surprised but incredibly sad. I'm a black woman with a black daughter and if it were me I know I'd be going to jail because every adult involved would be set on fire.

When I saw the post on Twitter, I was shocked and appalled. Child Q was the same age as my DD is now. I will admit, if my DD smelled of cannabis she would not undergo the same trauma because she is white. She goes to a London school with a high proportion of black girls attending and, when I was telling her about this, she remarked how her black friends would be treated differently to herself. She knows she has that privilege. She is also appalled. It's beyond comprehension.

We had a chat again about consent, abuse of power, her rights and about safeguarding because every girl needs to know that this is abuse and should resist.

That's appalling. The poor girl. How many adults failed here?!

• Her teacher
• School leadership
• 3 policemen
• 2 policewomen
• the school nurse

Didn't one of those adults think, 'Hang on a minute, we need to call her mum/stop this, it's going too far'?

@BOOTS52

That is shocking and disgusting. At 15 I would have refused and requested my mum no way would I have been searched like that. What is wrong with the school. She is still considered a child and her family should have been called. That would not happen to a white child at all. I would definitely be taking this further if that happened to a child of mine.

Why are you placing responsibility on the child? She shouldn't be responsible for having to refuse and request a parent. The school and police are the adults here they are responsible.

Sad to see so many racists in the wild - at the school, in the met and here on Mumsnet. But also heartening that there are voices raised against this.

I agree @RandomBasic.

Horrific - lots of people need sacking for this - but they won't be no doubt.

This is state sanctioned racist assault. If it wouldn't risk identifiying the child I would want the school to be named and absolutely shamed.

People need to be sacked for this.

@Katya213

This is not a thread to talk about:

-not all police officers are racist!
-not all teachers/schools are like this!
-some white people have been treated appallingly by the police too!

This is a thread sharing the absolutely disgusting, racist behaviour of the adults who should have been safeguarding that poor girl. She was black. There is much evidence to support that this wouldn’t have happened had she been white.

Please can people stop trying to minimise the racism that so many PoC and statistics are telling you happens on a daily basis.

I’m white and I am fully aware of how privileged that makes me. I’m also a woman and I am fully aware of how vulnerable that makes me. If I want to discuss this, I’ll go to the feminism boards.

Hand on heart I honestly can’t say that if I were working in that school I’d have attempted to stop it.

That’s because it’s conditioned within me to think that police have all the power and you must do as they say without question. The one time years ago I tried to challenges that assumption, it went wrong. I’m pretty sure my feelings would be (as a white adult female) that if you didnt go along with what they said it will be even worse.

A young, black girl would likely have that in her head multiplied x100.

This unquestioning culture of the police is very, very wrong.

I'd love to know what really happened on the day.

I work in a school in an area not that different to Hackney, although not a Met Police area.

Drugs in school are a problem. We often have a child who smells of weed. Getting Police to show any interest at all, let alone turn up while the "incident" is ongoing is impossible. They don't attend even when we find drugs.

I wonder why this case was such a big deal. It can't only be that the poor girl was black.

Regardless, there's no way on earth we'd have allowed this search on school premises or allowed Police access to a child without an appropriate adult present.

Peeps, you’re wasting your time. There is nothing you can say to convince the all lives matter kin of the evil of racism.

They will never recognise the additional trauma caused knowing that an already egregious act was racially motivated.

@DetailMouse

I'd love to know what really happened on the day.

I work in a school in an area not that different to Hackney, although not a Met Police area.

Drugs in school are a problem. We often have a child who smells of weed. Getting Police to show any interest at all, let alone turn up while the "incident" is ongoing is impossible. They don't attend even when we find drugs.

I wonder why this case was such a big deal. It can't only be that the poor girl was black.

Regardless, there's no way on earth we'd have allowed this search on school premises or allowed Police access to a child without an appropriate adult present.

If you read the case findings report it is pretty clear what the primary reason for all this happening was. ie, she is black. It is just disgraceful.

Black people have been saying for decades about their poor experiences when they have had contact with the Police. The racism that they have had to deal with, the Sus law, that gave the Police, carte blanch to harass black men non stop. Black women not being afforded respect when being handled by the police. Cherry Groce, Joy Gardner, Cynthia Jarrett are well known cases. Not much if any action was taken with the Police in these disturbing cases. Does not look as if much has changed, over the years.

This is horrible and I can totally see how it was racist (and I am white, fwiw). Although I hope I'm not that prejudiced, I think there are very different stereotypes around white people who dabble with weed (middle-class, creative, hippyish, musicians, nice old ladies with arthritis) and black people who dabble with weed (rastas, yardies, dealers, knives, gangs). I can well believe that played a part in the decision to search the girl in such a humiliating way.

I also wonder if there was an element of resentment on somebody's part, that despite not only being black but black with dreadlocks, and possibly smoking or being around weed, this girl was doing so well at school. A desire to take her down a peg or two. If she was literally top of the class, maybe a racist teacher or teachers who consciously or unconsciously wanted a white pupil to have that honour.

Whatever else happens, I hope she is eventually able to overcome this awful trauma and have the successful life she deserves.