Child Q: Met officers could be sacked over schoolgirl's strip-search

A protest was held after Child Q was strip-searched at school

Three Metropolitan Police officers are to face gross misconduct hearings over the strip-search of a black schoolgirl.

Child Q, 15, was wrongly accused of having drugs and strip-searched on her period, with no appropriate adult present, in Hackney, in December 2020.

Met bosses have been told by the police watchdog they should consider formally apologising to Child Q and her mother.

Allegations against the officers include that Child Q was discriminated against because of her race and sex.

Other allegations they face are that the decision to carry out the search was inappropriate, there was no appropriate adult present and the officers did not get authorisation from a supervisor.

If gross misconduct is proved, the officers could be sacked.

A fourth Met officer will face a disciplinary meeting over the fact that no appropriate adult was present during the search.

During the incident, the girl was taken out of an exam to the school's medical room and strip-searched by two female Met police officers who were looking for cannabis, while teachers remained outside.

The girl's intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, according to a safeguarding review of the incident published in March 2022.

No drugs were found.

The strip-search of Child Q was not an isolated case, it was found

Steve Noonan, director of the police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), said the officers should face "disciplinary proceedings" for the parts they played.

He added: "Ultimately it will be for that disciplinary panel to decide whether the allegations against them are proven."

Det Ch Supt James Conway, who leads policing in Hackney and Tower Hamlets, said he was formally writing to Child Q and her family to apologise for the "trauma" caused to her.

He said: "We have been clear in saying that the experience of Child Q should never have happened and was truly regrettable.

Policing powers review

"It will now be for the hearing panel to determine whether the matters against the three officers are proven and it is important we don't pre-judge the outcome."

He said that more senior levels of authorisation are now needed for strip-searches, and that the number of such searches being carried out has been reduced because the force "had been overusing this power".

The IOPC added it was calling for a "substantial review of policing powers" relating to child strip-searches.

The watchdog said it was part of "learning recommendations" being made to the Home Office, National Police Chiefs' Council and the College of Policing to make changes to national guidance, policy and training relating to searches involving the exposure of intimate body parts.

The recommendations follow independent investigations into multiple incidents in which children have been strip searched by the Met Police.

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