In 2020, Child Q, a black child was strip searched at her secondary school by two police officers from the Metropolitan Police. Teaching staff had reported a smell of cannabis but a search of her possessions revealed no evidence of this. Teachers contacted the police and PC Syzmydynksi (a male officer) came to the school with PC Linge (a female officer). A PC Wray attended to assist with the search. Child Q was placed in a room with PCs Wray and Linge who told her to remove her school uniform, her underwear and her sanitary towel for a search. They made her bend over. They then searched her hair. None of the officers present obtained authorisation, summoned an Appropriate Adult, or contacted Child Q’s mother. They failed to consider alternatives and their record-keeping was woefully inadequate. School staff denied knowing that a strip search was going to happen or had occurred but that was contradicted in the Panel’s findings.
During the gross misconduct hearings concluding on 26 June 2025 all three officers acknowledged that the strip search should not have happened. The female officers apologised to Child Q and her family. However, they all denied that Child Qs race played any part in the many failings that occurred that day, or that they had failed to treat her like a child. The Panel nonetheless found gross misconduct proven for former PCs Szmydynski and Linge and dismissed them, while PC Wray received a final written warning.
Notwithstanding that there is now a wealth of evidence from cases like this, pointing to the disproportionate use of coercive police powers on black children, and notwithstanding concerning statistics for each of the three officers in this case, the MPS disciplinary panel found the individual statistics unreliable and declined to find that Child Qs race or age were factors in why she was treated so poorly.
Carolynn Gallwey and Lauren Frederick at Bhatt Murphy act for Child Q and her mother. Anonymity remains in place.
Read the family press release here.
Read more about the case in the Guardian here and BBC here.
Watch the family press statement in the ITV news report here.
