London:
According to new data released Monday, London police searched more than 600 children under fire over a two-year period, most of them black boys.
UK Children’s Commissioner Rachel de Souza said she was “deeply shocked” by the numbers after being given them by the Metropolitan Police.
De Souza’s request came after Britain’s largest police force had to apologize in March for the ‘Child Q’ case, leading to an investigation into gross misconduct against four officers.
The 15-year-old black schoolgirl was searched by female officers in 2020 after she was falsely suspected of carrying cannabis despite knowing she was menstruating.
She was searched without an “appropriate adult” present, and in 23 percent of the cases exhumed by de Souza, no adult was present either.
A total of 650 minors aged 10-17 were searched by Met agents between 2018 and 2020, she found.
More than 95 percent were boys and 58 percent of the 650 were described by the officer as black.
De Souza said she was “extremely concerned” about the ethnic imbalance, saying Child Q may be part of a larger “systemic child protection issue” at the Met.
The numbers had risen sharply year on year, she said, showing that a significant number of children “are subjected to this intrusive and traumatizing practice every year.”
London forces have been rocked in recent years by a succession of incidents involving officers, including last year when a member of the diplomatic protection team was jailed for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Sarah Everard.
A crisis in public trust in the police led Cressida Dick to step down as commissioner of the Met in February.
Commenting on De Souza’s findings, the Met said it had already made changes “to ensure that children who are victims of intrusive searches are treated appropriately and respectfully”.
Some children may themselves be “vulnerable victims of exploitation” by gangsters and drug criminals, it admitted.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan redoubled his criticism of the Met after criticizing police over the Child Q case and other incidents.
It was “deeply disturbing” that so many searches took place without an adult being present, a Khan spokesman said.
“And there remain serious, broader issues related to disproportionality and the use of detention and frisking of young black boys,” the spokesperson said.
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)