Met Police PC questions training for strip-searches

A Metropolitan police officer has told a misconduct panel that police training on conducting strip-searches in schools was “insufficient”.

Det Con Kristina Linge, PC Victoria Wray and PC Rafal Szmydynski all deny gross misconduct over their treatment of the girl known as Child Q in December 2020.

The 15-year-old was strip-searched at school by officers in Hackney, east London after she was wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis.

PC Rajon Rahman, who drove PC Wray to the school and remained outside the medical room while the girl was searched, told the independent panel on Tuesday that strip-searches were “covered very briefly” during training.

PC Rahman said: “It was not gone into detail about it. There was mention of it, that it existed.”

“What I can say is the training or the learning in Hendon around that was insufficient in my opinion.”

The police training college for the Met is located in Hendon, north London.

PC Rahman said that before the incident he had not attended a search at school before and had only been involved in “normal” searches, meaning of individuals on the street, and searches of a person in custody.

The panel, being held in south-east London over three weeks, previously heard the girl was left feeling “demeaned” and “physically violated” by the search.

It is alleged that the strip search was carried out without authorisation, in the absence of an appropriate adult, and with no adequate concern being given to Child Q’s age, sex, or the need to treat her as a child, and that the child’s race was an effective cause.

Scotland Yard has previously apologised over the incident.

The misconduct hearing continues.