Yet another one. Met strip search a menstruating child, male officers involved in the search

[Feministwoman]

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/24/girl-tried-to-kill-herself-after-strip-search-by-met-officers-mother-says

I used to be an Appropriate Adult. I was asked to be present at a strip search once. It was a 16 year old male under the care of the LA.

I attended and asked the young man did he want me there (aware that having a woman in her 30s there may actually be more upsetting than being with 2 male officers) he said he did but would prefer I not look. So I stood facing the corner while they searched him. I had to argue with the officers who wanted me to watch (PACE offered little guidance).

My understanding is that an Appropriate Adult isn't legally required for a strip search of a child however the police wanted it anyway and I was happy to do it to ensure the child was supported.

I'm no fan of my local police force but the way the MET behave is terrible. There are things they can do to make these processes more transparent.

Doesnt matter if she has an LD, she's a child.

I mentioned thr LDs because surely that must have made things much harder fir the police. Which surely proves without a doubt that as it likely would have made her incredibly difficult to deal with ( understandably so) that this was nothing but a power play. If they had waited fir a parent/guardian/ appropriate adult it would have been easier fir them. So this cannot have been about necessity or procedure because they created a situation that was ten times nore difficult than it needed to be.

They certainly dont even seem to care that they have given themselves away to be sick mysoginistic bullies taking any opportunity to prove a point.

@Whatwouldscullydo
Indeed, plus like I said earlier there is no legal reason for an AA or parent to be there but there is also no reason they can't. So you would think the LD may give them pause. In my own example I was an AA as part of my professional role. My professional role is very time pressued and we are not usually keen to do things that aren't statutory (the statutory stuff already fills your working day and more) but everybody I spoke to agreed my presence was a reasonable request and a good use of resources.

I have no doubt that it was back covering rather than genuine concern on the part of my local force but that's a good thing. It shows that they are aware of the need for accountability and that their powers can be questioned. Apparently the MET have no such concerns.

Also quite possibly proof of the whole " wind them up til you have probable cause" thing.

Her words not good enough but the boys word is...

I wonder what the difference between them was🤔

What an appalling incident .
Depressingly there's a campaign currently underway to completely remove the whole idea of "single sex" and the women's right to privacy from men. Only yesterday a senior barrister from a leading law firm was pontificating in court that there should be no such thing as single sex spaces - men must be allowed everywhere women are vulnerable if they so chose (the Allison Bailey case). The same opinion has been voiced on this board over the weekend by at least one poster.
Given how many forces are now dominated by Stonewall's ideology, presumably this is a logical development with men increasingly taking advantage of these situations.

This is so awful that I can't articulate it. That poor girl. She was failed in so many ways. Violently assaulted by the people who are supposed to protect us.

I hope she gets some bloody good therapy to help her come to terms with what happened. And hope the officers involved don't get a chance to do this to anyone else.

@fallfallfall

women of all ages conceal evidence in their vagina and rectums.

The child involved is not a 'woman' of any age.

This is just reprehensible behaviour of the metropolitan police. The procedures meant to protect people, let alone a child, in custody were not followed. The search should not have been conducted in view of officers of a different sex.

Suicide in cells is a big big problem - especially so many inmates with mental health problems. Should there be a suicide then the police are given the blame (not the gov who don't provide adequate mental health care).
The way to stop suicides is to take away all sharp objects, belts etc.
I would guess that this might be why they strip searched her after finding the sharp object she had hidden.

Would you prefer people were locked up with their sharp objects??

A strip search after 20 hours is nothing less than a sexual assualt. That poor child.

The police are a fucking disgrace.

After more than 20 hours in custody, Olivia was discovered to be in possession of a sharpened stick which she used to self-harm, her mother said.

She'd hidden it in her bra.
Did her mother really want her shut up alone in a cell with her harming stick.
Covid was the problem too. Following the rules.

Do I read it right? She and her friends had an argument with a boy/s. The boy/s called the police on the girls. The police obligingly turned up, took the girl (s) away, locked her up for 20 hours, did an abusive/illegal strip search.

She's never going out to argue against boys again. The boys will use the same tactic when other girls argue with them.

But was it not the girl harming herself (cutting with a sharp object) that triggered the search? Can you imagine if they’d waited and she or someone else had come to more harm?

Yes. Not only should women stopped by a single policeman in public request a second one, if they're girls they shouldn't turn up to a police station when innocent of the crime!

FFS!

Humiliation in this form is a well used method of instilling fear to gain control.
I'm becoming increasingly scared of the police.

Fuck!

Sod all the protocols, laws, adviice and guidelines.

Where is the humanity in any of that?

The boys? What do they think of themselves now? Has anyone told them what the upshot of their childish malice was?

The police officers? Have they had a rethink at all? Has anyone told them that they just acted in the same way as we were reading about officers in, say South Africa during apartheid? Or any of the other totalitarian regimes that we routinely condemn.

Has any adult stopped and said "Well, we seem to have forgotten that all the players here were kids and we should have acted quite differently"

Poor kid. I hope she gets enough support to sue the shit out of the Met, specific officers and the boys for making the malicious call in the first place. Lots of noise required to make sure something actually changes.

The problem is the numbers of stabbings but nothing funded by the gov, (SS, schools, drugs) to deal with this which leaves the police trying to get the knives off armed kids. Or unarmed kids - but they won't know this until they're searched.
“Over nearly 40 years since 1977, some 1,000 young people died after being stabbed – around one young person every fortnight,” said Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. “This has been pretty consistent over time, regardless of policing tactics or the toughening up of sentencing policy. Indeed, the numbers of young people dying from stab wounds have risen as sentencing policy has toughened over recent years.”

It's like the criticism of Social Services when child is killed by parents. It's the lack of services for early years in SS and NHS. Not that all SS are useless.

Is that you, Owen?

My understanding is that an Appropriate Adult isn't legally required for a strip search of a child

How can this be possible? Aside from the awful concept of strip searching a child, how can it not be a legal requirement for an appropriate adult to be present to oversee the well being of the child?

And yes, there is undoubtedly a racist aspect to this. These boys have essentially used a system which is heavily weighted in their favour to punish a girl who disagreed with them.

Not referring to this specific case as I don't really have enough knowledge about this one but as the case has moved on to wider strip searching below is about that.

Strip searching is difficult but too often people are hiding stuff (weapons or drugs) knowing they add a significant element of difficulty to the evidence gathering process and can even weaponise the search process against the police. I wouldn't want to be in the police force it is all community and woke now where you can't even enforce the law or investigate crime without sections of society jumping on you.

What a horrific story. Poor girl.

I think the issue here was that she was found to have a knife on her, presumably that's what led to the search? It's a little unclear.

'Nothing was discovered when Olivia was searched by police but she and her friends were arrested.

At some point Olivia was found to be in possession of a blade from a knife, which her lawyer later argued she used to self-harm.'

So I can see why they felt the need to search her. But as the lawyer said, protocols should have been followed. The Met is an absolutely bloody mess.

To those asking whether the police should not have tried to find a weapon I have two questions

1. why was a vulnerable girl locked up overnight in circumstances that would make her more anxious and stressed?
2. why did they not search for any weapon in a more sympathetic way? - They could have bought the mother in

The Met is rotten through and through. How many more serious and awful cases can come out demonstrating they can't even follow their own rules before something is done?