Mayor will not end police strip searching children despite concerns in Casey Review

The Mayor today was challenged on the use of strip search by the Met Police with Caroline Russell calling for the strip searching of children to end.

Raising concerns directly from London Youth’s youth board, Caroline raised further issues around policing neurodiverse people and safeguards for strip searches including increasing the number of appropriate adults present during a strip search to two and better support for young people and families left traumatised by the practice.

Questioning follows evidence revealed by the Casey Review, which highlighted the ongoing disproportionality in the use of stop and search and the overuse of intrusive searches on Black children which “point to a collective and continued failure by the Met to understand, accept and address the existence of racism at all levels in the organisation.”[1]

On ending the strip searching of children, the Mayor responded saying “We've got to be very careful about the unintended consequences of doing so” but acknowledged that circumstances “should be exceptional.”[2]

Green London Assembly Member Caroline Russell said:

“Even this year, two children a week are still being subjected to intrusive and traumatising strip searches.

“Casey’s review noted a deep mistrust from Black Londoners of the Met resulting from years of over-policing and under-protection which the practice of strip searching children continues to fuel. 

“It’s so worrying that the youth board are spending their time thinking about ways to protect themselves and their families from the impact of a police power that even the Met Commissioner has described as “misused” and “overused”. [3]

“We need to listen to the Casey review and, crucially, to Londoners and protect young people from disproportionate, intrusive and damaging policing.”

Caroline also secured commitments from the Mayor today to look at the suggestions from the youth board to mitigate the impact of interactions with the police. These include:

• updating the Met’s advice to Londoners experiencing stop and search to specifically support neurodiverse people
• having two appropriate adults during strip and intimate search to better protect young people 
• and improved aftercare for young Londoners and their families following the invasive and traumatising experience of strip search

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner initiated an investigation into the Met’s practice of strip searching children during stop and searches which took place between 2018 and 2020. Over that time period, 650 children were strip searched, a quarter of whom were aged between 10 and 15 years old. 
Of these 650 searches: 

• In 23% of instances an Appropriate Adult was not present
• In 53% of instances no further action was taken 
• In more than half of the searches the location was not recorded. 

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner also found significant racial disproportionality in the use of strip searches on children. 58% of the boys who were strip searched were described by the officer as Black. In 2018 this figure was 75%.