Yet another example of systemic racism in the UK

March 16, 2022 8:10 AM

Two years ago, teaching staff at a London school "smelled cannabis" on a fifteen year old child. Despite searching her bag, clothes and shoes and finding nothing, the police were called. [CW: sexual abuse of a minor by police]

She was taken out of an examination, led to a room where she was strip searched, having to hold her bottom open whilst coughing. She was on her period. Her mother was not contacted, no teaching staff and no appropriate adult were in the room while police officers strip searched her.

Yes of course Child Q was black. And the "incident" only came to light two years later because of a Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review [LCSPR] [pdf download] (the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel "felt that this case was not notifiable and did not meet the criteria for an LCSPR").

Hackney Council says 'We are absolutely focused on making sure the legacy of Child Q’s experience results in change'.

posted by humph (27 comments total)

Mod note: I added a content warning and moved distressing details "below the fold."
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:43 AM on March 16, 2022 [5 favorites]

So why are the piece of shit cops who did this not identified anywhere? What discipline are they facing?
posted by praemunire at 8:46 AM on March 16, 2022 [21 favorites]

Justice will be served when the four officers are charged and convicted of sexual assault on a minor.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:58 AM on March 16, 2022 [27 favorites]

Fucking fuckers, god this makes me so angry. The abject cruelty of the whole scenario is sick. Fuck those cops, fuck the teachers who called them, fuck the head of the school. They should all be fired AT THE VERY LEAST (and the cops thrown in the clink too).
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:02 AM on March 16, 2022 [17 favorites]

The articles cited here seem to be letting the teaching staff mostly off the hook here. Is it normal to bring in the police because a 15-year old smells like pot? What did they expect the police to do?
posted by vacapinta at 9:04 AM on March 16, 2022 [13 favorites]

Yeah, well, I will believe that Hackney makes a change when I actually see it. The US and the UK have been making changes to racist practice since I can remember, and I assume based on the results that the changes are mostly "try to cover up better".

I would be very interested to hear more about "believed she smelled strongly of cannabis", too. I've smelled a lot of cannabis in my time and it's a rather pervasive odor - I'm not sure that I could pick out one particular person in a crowd. Did they really believe this or were they just frustrated by terrible working conditions and thus not thinking clearly or bigots or sadists or having trouble with her for some other reason?

Further, it seems like even if a kid does smell like pot, unless they are unable to pay attention or behave in class this seems like something to ignore - obviously a kid who comes to class high thinks they are putting something over on the teacher (when I student-taught, a favorite student of mine came to class high all the time...but he wasn't a bad kid, just going through some stuff) but whatever, punishing a student who is behaving acceptably is a bad plan.
posted by Frowner at 9:07 AM on March 16, 2022 [7 favorites]

The Metropolitan police on Tuesday said they apologised for what a senior officer described as the child’s “truly regrettable” treatment, which has been the subject of a separate Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation, whose report is nearing completion.

“Truly regrettable” seems mild as a euphemism for “sexual assault of a minor?” And yes, the teaching staff utterly failed and should be barred from working with children at the absolute least.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:14 AM on March 16, 2022 [7 favorites]

For non-UK readers, its worth pointing out that this is once again the Metropolitan Police force, who MeFites may remember from

* their crackdown on a vigil for a woman murdered by one of their policemen.
* their keenness to use facial recognition software
* The Charles de Menezes killing

and for being labelled both institutionally corrupt and institutionally racist*.

*Not all racist, argues senior officer.
posted by biffa at 9:23 AM on March 16, 2022 [30 favorites]

They think it's merely regrettable because they think that it would have been justified if the child had actually been hiding drugs or if the correct procedures had been followed. The crime isn't that the child was sexually abused, but that they were sexually abused for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way.

If the child had actually been carrying drugs, and there had actually been an appropriate adult in the room, it would have still been a humiliating and traumatic experience - but that would have been okay.

It's okay to subject a person to that in order to gather evidence of a non-violent crime. It's okay to do that even when there is no reason to believe that an invasive body search is necessary to prevent harm to the person in question or to others.

So, "regrettable." A procedural error.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:33 AM on March 16, 2022 [34 favorites]

"I would be very interested to hear more about "believed she smelled strongly of cannabis", too. I've smelled a lot of cannabis in my time and it's a rather pervasive odor - I'm not sure that I could pick out one particular person in a crowd. "

From 5 years on a school board in the US, I can basically assure you that this formula is 100% about "establishing grounds for a reasonable search under the law" and absolutely 0% about "smelling cannabis." (UK law around reasonable searches is relatively similar.) My guess would be, an authority figure was deeply convinced this child was high -- possibly for good reasons, possibly for bad. Maybe the child was acting high, maybe a bunch of their friends had just been busted, maybe the child had a history of being high at school but avoiding getting caught. Or maybe she was tired or stressed or a little out of it, and the authority figure went "U R ON DRUGS obviously." So they "smelled cannabis" to give them a reasonable ground to search her. (Smelling is best, because if you SEE it, you have to take a photo. But smelling is a nebulous and transient thing, so you can claim you just have a "good nose," and it's totally normal for a smell to have dissipated by the time someone else gets there.)

I was often frustrated with how obsessed local cops were with catching kids drinking or using IN SCHOOL, which kids are mostly smart enough to NOT DO, because a kid with vodka in a school is an open-and-shut case (even if they didn't drink it). But we regularly had kids who were waiting for their parents to leave for work, pre-drinking at home from their parents' liquor cabinet, and then driving themselves to school and showing up drunk. They cops would say they couldn't really do anything about that since they had no proof they DROVE drunk, and we'd be like, uh, you absolutely could, he does this three days a week, you could sit around the corner from his house, pull him over, and have him take a breathalyzer. It was 100% clear that what they actually meant was, "If we arrest this white kid whose parents gave him a car for his personal use, we are going to be facing two angry parents who have a lot of power in this small city. It's easier to arrest poor minority kids who 'smell like cannabis' and who can be railroaded by the system."

Anyway, don't drive near wealthy high schools where students drive their own cars to school in the morning during arrival. Some of those kids are actively drunk behind the wheel at 8 a.m.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:46 AM on March 16, 2022 [45 favorites]

The attitude of the Met and the people who support their practices is disgusting and inhumane. I live in a very poor area of a very poor borough in South London. I've witnessed groups of police stopping and searching young boys during things like street fairs designed to "bring the community together". Four or five adult men clustered around a child up against a wall. In those moments I try to use my (relative) privilege to help out the kids, but there's an attitude within the force and outside of it that these actions are acceptable because of the ongoing "war on drugs" bullshit that allows them to stop a 10 year old on suspicion of possession.

There are, sadly, lots of people in this country who believe these actions to be appropriate and fair, because they don't believe black children have the right to live their lives in peace and safety.
posted by fight or flight at 9:53 AM on March 16, 2022 [20 favorites]

Did they really believe this or were they just frustrated by terrible working conditions and thus not thinking clearly or bigots or sadists or having trouble with her for some other reason?

As someone who knows the kind of shit that headmasters and teachers will pull in these situations: they probably wanted grounds to kick her out of the school. The report states that she was known to another child who had been excluded for having drugs and that she had previously been known to have drugs.

It's also notable to me that the girl didn't want the designated appropriate adult (in this case her teachers) in the room with her while she was searched. This is apparently acceptable practice for this situation. It stands out to me that she didn't trust her teachers to keep her safe, or perhaps didn't realise what she was going to be put through. This poor child.
posted by fight or flight at 10:00 AM on March 16, 2022 [11 favorites]

Is it normal to bring in the police because a 15-year old smells like pot? What did they expect the police to do?

There's only so far you can go with legally searching a child for suspected drug possession without getting the police involved. As per the report, they had already searched all of her belongings and not found anything, so they called the police in order to escalate it to a strip search. The child had previously been in trouble about it and the school had written to her mother saying they would take further action if it happened again, so they no doubt felt justified in calling the cops on her. No wonder, perhaps, she didn't want them in the room. She was already a criminal in their eyes.

The police present, for the record, were three women and one man. The report doesn't state whether or not the male officer was in the room when she was searched (I don't believe he would be allowed to be there, legally speaking, but they were already breaking the rules, why not go further). They didn't have body cameras (which they should have). I'm not sure if it took place in a room with CCTV (which it should have). The teachers didn't call her parents (which they should have). Her mother didn't find out about it until she got home and her daughter told her.

This is an absolute failure of safeguarding. The officers involved should be fired and so should the teachers who allowed it to happen.

(Sorry to threadsit, this is just pissing me off as another example of this shitty fascist island being The Absolute Worst.)
posted by fight or flight at 10:17 AM on March 16, 2022 [14 favorites]

This is the kind of thing I think of when people talk about how important school is for mental health. Oh yeah, mental health is what any of these sadistic fucks* actually care about. This isn't news because it's uncommon, it's only news because they decided to report this one.
*Not all teachers but obviously enough of them
posted by bleep at 10:57 AM on March 16, 2022 [3 favorites]

I could honestly feel my blood pressure rising and tears springing to my eyes as I read this article.

Fire them all. Just fucking fire them all! The teachers who called the police and stood by while the police abused the child, the police who carried out the assault, their supervisors who clearly allow this culture of racist policing. All of them!

This poor child. At the risk of [re]stating the obvious from the article and this thread—this is a textbook illustration of systemic racism both in the education and justice systems.

I can’t imagine being a teacher or school administrator and just standing by in this situation (or worse, aiding and abetting). I am not trying to be that person who is all, “Well, if I had been there…” but this is so clearly wrong it is literally something I’d quit my job and go scorched earth over rather than do nothing in the moment.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:00 AM on March 16, 2022 [13 favorites]

Anyway, don't drive near wealthy high schools where students drive their own cars to school in the morning during arrival.

70% of households in Hackney do not own or have access to a car.
posted by ambrosen at 12:46 PM on March 16, 2022 [9 favorites]

As eyebrows says, this has 0% to do about cannabis and everything to do about needing a pretext for a strip search. Another example of how the concern about drug abuse and/or drug sales is weaponized to terrorize and violate the bodies of non-white and poor communities. If the world (or at least this school) was a reasonable place the administration and teachers would be THANKING GOD that a student would come high/intoxicated to school rather than being high, unsupervised, just about anywhere else in isolation. They would see it as an opportunity to provide a safe place for someone who either was going through some terrible shit (hence the reason to be high at school) or who needed some gentle guidance about the appropriate time and place for intoxication (you know, this person being a fucking teenager and all!). Instead they used this as an opportunity to violate the bodily autonomy of a developing, vulnerable young person perpetuating racial and intergenerational trauma. AND FOR WHAT? Anybody against the decriminalization and destigmatization of all drugs needs to understand that their position provides a cudgel to the cruelest/sickest parts of our society to use against the most vulnerable and victimized communities out there. This is what you get when you criminalize a NORMAL PART OF THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE.
posted by flamk at 12:55 PM on March 16, 2022 [19 favorites]

*Four or five adult men clustered around a child up against a wall. In those moments I try to use my (relative) privilege to help out the kids*

Even this can be risky - this white middle class academic attempted to intervene in a stop and search against a young black kid, and the Met forcibly cut her clothes off her, assaulted her, stood around laughing about her genitals, ^and that was just the stuff picked up on the bodycams^ - she says worse was said in the cells with the cameras off. Done explicitly to punish her for intervening. “‘Treat her like a terrorist’ said the ranking officer, laughing”
posted by tinkletown at 1:43 PM on March 16, 2022 [21 favorites]

That sound you hear is Robert Peel rising from his grave out of sheer spite to destroy the Met and what it has become.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 4:35 PM on March 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

Because a 15 year old girl smoking pot makes it okay to sexually assault and humiliate her. I used to get high at school sometimes. We'd go out for lunch and come back stoned. In my most unusual Catholic High School, odds are good the principal would have had a heart-to-heart chat. I like to think he'd have treated a Black student the same. All the adults here have harmed this child, and, by extension, all the kids in the school.
posted by theora55 at 7:00 PM on March 16, 2022 [3 favorites]

The police present, for the record, were three women and one man. The report doesn't state whether or not the male officer was in the room when she was searched (I don't believe he would be allowed to be there, legally speaking, but they were already breaking the rules, why not go further).

Everything about this incident is bad except for the report into it, which is a really excellent example of its kind. Gamble and McCallum who investigated the incident and wrote the report obviously recognises it for what it was - the unjustified sexual assault of a minor with a root cause of racism. I firmly believe that if there had been a male officer in the room then they would have noted that fact in the report. I do not trust the police, or that school but, on the evidence presented, I do trust Jim Gamble and Rory McCallum to do their jobs effectively.
posted by plonkee at 9:57 PM on March 16, 2022 [3 favorites]

I read this yesterday and couldn't stop thinking about it. That poor child. Leaving aside the actions of the police, what did the school staff - and in particular the safeguarding lead - think they were doing?

The report says there is no way of gathering and analysing data on strip searches, and makes a recommendation that there should be. The fact that there is not already seems fairly appalling given current recording practices and system capabilities.

As someone working in children's safeguarding data - it seems like the police and legal system keep thinking of worse things to do that we haven't thought of monitoring. We know to monitor whether children interacting with the police have access to appropriate adults, whether they are kept in cells overnight, whether youth sentences are appropriate, whether young people in the secure estate have access to family and pastoral care and education. We're not always achieving these things, especially outcomes for young people who have offended, but at least they are on our radar. This was not on my radar either as a data analyst or a former school governor.

I'm not sure about the report (I read a lot of these and my mother writes them). It feels a bit toothless and unambitious to me - and I realise it is technically toothless in any case as its recommendations are only that. They aren't all in one place in the report, but in summary they are:

1. The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (this appears to be the Hackney panel only - why is this being left to the LA and not a national recommendation, or at least pan-London?) to engage with the IOPC to develop national guidance on complaint handling. This is about dealing with the aftermath - it won't stop something like this happening again. (And not a great decision to put this as recommendation 1.)
2. The Met to sort out its data on strip searches. (Again, I'd have put this lower down the list.)
3. DfE to review its guidance on Searching, Screening and Confiscation - mostly framed as a language issue.
4. The Met to beef up its appropriate adult guidance.
5. The local safeguarding partnership to make sure this case is "referenced" in training, with a focus on practitioner advocacy. Yes, of course, but I guess I have a weariness about the effectiveness of training as demonstrated by repeat safeguarding reviews with similar themes.
6. Police guidance on strip searches to focus on child safeguarding. This should have been Rec 1.
7. The Met to "engage the local stop and search monitoring group and other representative bodies to consider the lessons from this review and how the effectiveness of safeguarding (as part of stop and search practice) can be overseen". Yes, I guess so, though I'd rather frame this as more clearly the Met's responsibility with input from other organisations.
8. In any situation where substance misuse is suspected, this should be seen as a safeguarding issue and practitioners contact children's social care. Seems reasonable, though does rather shift the responsibility to CSC. I am in fact surprised that the police didn't already have a duty to notify CSC before they went to the school (and the school too). They certainly had a duty to notify afterwards, which presumably means that CSC didn't think the incident as reported by the police was significant enough to raise concerns.
9. Met to talk to the College of Policing about better stop and search guidance around children. More guidance - and I know it's all we have, but it doesn't seem like enough.
10. Another rec for the DfE to look at its guidance (as in Rec 3), "to include much stronger reference to the importance of keeping records and engaging parents as part of best safeguarding practice". Well, again, yes, though I think I'd have kept these as separate items and flagged up engaging parents first.
11. Home Office and National Police Chiefs Council to look at PACE guidance on parent engagement in strip searches.
12. The local SG partnership to start an awareness-raising programme with schools about stop and search. Yes, good plan, though I'm worried about how engaged the Met are with the partnership.
13. SG partnership to continue adultification training, with a focus on police and schools.
14. SG partnership to get on with its anti-racist charter and guidance. Yes, I'm surprised this is not already in place.

That's the lot. One of the things that worries me is that so much of this depends on how effective the partnership is, and whether organisations are attending. Especially with most secondary schools not under LA control and therefore harder to engage. Also, I would have expected to see some recommendations about how restitution can be made to Child Q. i realise the report makes it explicit that they have deliberately said very little about Child Q's life and circumstances - but would still expect to see something along the lines of a recommendation that agencies review whether she is receiving the support she needs.

I also would expect to see something about Ofsted's role in monitoring stop and search / strip search in schools. I really hope that this leads to an inspection of the school and a focus on its complicity of the abuse of this child.

If you are in the UK and have the bandwidth - you might want to see if your local safeguarding partnership is looking for lay members. Last time I looked, mine was distinctly uninterested, but I will try again.
posted by paduasoy at 1:34 AM on March 17, 2022 [7 favorites]

The report says there is no way of gathering and analysing data on strip searches, and makes a recommendation that there should be.

The report also says the Metropolitan Police strip searched 25 children last year, 18 of them stripped while in handcuffs. Only 2 of the children were white. Only 3 of those strip searches resulted in officers finding anything.

Clearly, the data exists.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:26 AM on March 17, 2022 [8 favorites]

Just came across this research by Jahnine Davis from 2019, which is relevant: Where are the Black girls in our CSA services, studies and statistics?.
posted by paduasoy at 3:37 AM on March 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

One of the problems with police and authority figures in general (besides the utterly pervasive racism, of course) is that they have lost all sense of proportion.

If a crime was absolutely being committed, what proportional measures are justified by that crime?

Let's say for argument's sake that it was reasonable to search this kid's bag because they suspected her of having pot (I think they should have left well enough alone, but whatever). They find nothing. Does the possibility that a 15-year-old kid may be hiding some small amount of weed (even if true) justify an invasive strip search? The only reasonable response is absolutely fucking not.

Did Eric Garner selling loose cigarettes on the street justify choking him until he died? Absolutely fucking not.

Did George Floyd allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill justify kneeling on his neck until he died? Absolutely fucking not.

Sane police agencies utilized this balancing test years ago when they reached the conclusion that most high-speed car chases were not worth capturing some minor criminal. They have regulations about when firearm use and deadly force is warranted (which some cops completely ignore). It's not as if agencies are unable to grasp this concept.

In short, it's better to let some criminals go. Because the alternative is horrible.

[My point, in case it's unclear, is that yes, it's horrible that this girl was innocent and treated this way. But the treatment would be horrible even if she had committed a crime. It's utterly disproportional to the alleged offense.]
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:41 AM on March 17, 2022 [15 favorites]

it's better to let some criminals go Is she a criminal? I would phrase it as - Limit how hard you search for evidence by the nature of the alleged offense. Using weed is a trivial offense. The response to a 15 year old suspect should be concerned about why they are allegedly getting high at school. The whole zero tolerance crap should be for violence, not pot.
posted by theora55 at 8:50 AM on March 17, 2022

And like if a kid appears high at school if schools were anywhere close to treating kids like human beings they should probably just go to the nurses office and lie down. But that would be "coddling".
posted by bleep at 12:02 PM on March 17, 2022 [3 favorites]