Concerns over strip searching of children remains despite drop in use
The controversial practice gained nationwide attention after the strip search of black teenager, known as Child Q, in a Hackney School in 2020.
Strip searches of children by police are down by more than half in four years but the Children’s Commissioner has questioned the use of force in some cases and warned that ethnic disparities persist.
The issue came to prominence after a black teenager was searched at school by officers while on her period in December 2020.
Known as Child Q, she was 15 years old when the incident took place in Hackney, east London, after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis.
Last summer a disciplinary panel found two officers had committed gross misconduct during the “disproportionate” and “humiliating” incident, and the pair were dismissed from the Metropolitan Police without notice.
Decline in number of searches
A report this week by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza’s office found no searches were recorded as happening at a school, in the latest period of July 2023 to June 2024, although it added that more than a quarter (26%) of search locations were not recorded.
Using data from the first half of 2024, her office estimated a total of 377 strip searches took place in the whole of that year.
This was down 56% on 854 searches in 2020.
While standard stop and searches can involve removal of coats and jackets, strip searching can involve exposure of intimate body parts and are governed by strict rules which officers must follow including where they take place and who should be present.
Dame Rachel said while there had been “promising signs of progress in the reduction of overall numbers, as well as how searches are carried out and recorded, this progress is masking the fact that too many are still unnecessary, unsafe and underreported”.
She said “too many children” are still being “let down by systemic failures and treated as adults while they are still children”.
Her report, published on Wednesday, found some searches between July 2023 and June 2024 were still being carried out in public view (26) and with no appropriate adult present (22).
The data also showed that three in 10 (30%) strip searches in that time period involved children who had already been searched at least once before, which the commissioner warned risked “significant and repeated damage to their mental wellbeing, their relationship with the police, and showing a clear failure to successfully intervene with children”.
Force, such as handcuffs or firearms and Tasers, was used in almost a fifth (17%) of all stop and searches of children between April 2024 and March 2025, her report added.
But in 43% of instances where force was used, no further action was taken, which the commissioner said called into “question the use of necessary and proportionate tests”.
While the vast majority of stop and searches of children in that period were on those aged 11 to 17 ( 22,437), there were 46 instances of use of force in a stop and search of children aged under 11.
Ethnic disparaties
The commissioner also warned of continued ethnic disparities, saying black children were almost five times as likely to have force used during a search than white children.
In cases where force was used against a white child to be searched, officers were more likely to note them as having a mental health need, but for black children the reason identified was more often their size or build, her report said.
Dame Rachel said: “We cannot accept that black children are subjected to use of force because of the way they are perceived.”
She described strip searching as “an intrusive and traumatic experience” and said it should “only ever be used as a last resort when there is an immediate risk of serious harm”.
She added: “A much higher threshold should be met before a child is subjected to a humiliating and traumatising strip search.
“Moving forward, it is vital that progress continues, with fewer searches carried out, better data recording when they do, and for the improving practice seen in some forces to be emulated across the country – only then will we build a culture of trust between children and the police.”
The Home Office and National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) have been contacted for comment.