Credit;PA
Earlier this week three police officers involved in the “traumatic” strip search of a black teenager at her school were investigated for misconduct.
The search, by Metropolitan Police officers, took place in 2020 without another adult present and in the knowledge that she was menstruating, a safeguarding report published in March found.
It concluded the strip search should never have happened, was unjustified and racism “was likely to have been an influencing factor”.
She was taken to the medical room and strip-searched by two female officers, while teachers remained outside.
During the ordeal her intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, according to the review.
No drugs were found. She was then sent home by taxi, later sharing her distress with her mother.
Her family strongly believe the strip search was a racist incident, and the review found her experiences are “unlikely to have been the same” had she not been black.
Scotland Yard has apologised and said the incident “should never have happened”.
The UK’s leading independent race equality think tank the Runnymede Trust highlights this horrific incident and two others in a truly harrowing thread, detailing three examples of institutional racism in the UK that have come to light in just 24 hours.
Read it in full below:
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They end the thread writing: “It could not be more obvious that Britain has problem with institutional and systemic racism. We do not need any more apologies or investigations without action. We need policy and a practice upheaval which will support ethnic minority people at all stages of their lives.”
And then followed on with: “Instead, we are facing an onslaught of draconian legislation in the #BordersBill, #PolicingBill, #ElectionsBill and #HumanRightsAct ‘overhaul’. Combined, these pose the most significant and sustained threat to Black and ethnic minority people’s civil rights in recent memory.”
Related: Dawn Butler accuses police of racial profiling after being stopped in Hackney
