A former Police Superintendent has said that he would "never strip search a child" and officers who need to do so should "get an appropriate adult" such as a parent or guardian.
His comments come off the back of a new report that has suggested that one child is strip-searched by the police every 14 hours.
In a conversation with Dawn Neesom and Bev Turner on GB News, former Superintendent Leroy Logan said: "I'm absolutely devastated by this.
"It shows a lack of ethical leadership, a lack of accountability and no transparency. Unfortunately, we had a series of Home Secretaries who were just off the chart and fueled the culture and the toxicity of it not only internally, because we've seen disproportionalities now with how black police officers and police staff are dealt with, but externally.
The former police officer condemned strip-searching children
GB News/GETTY
"One of the major outcomes was strip-searching children. I was a cop for 30 years. I never strip-searched a child."
He added: "We're talking about not just strip-searching, if you've got reasonable grounds based on good sound intelligence, it's quite clear not only are they going on a fishing expedition and stopping certain people randomly, but they're not adhering to the process.
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"I don't mind if he's a 16-year-old, 6 foot odd and possibly carrying knives but get an appropriate adult, get a guardian or a social worker. If you can, take them to the station and wait for that person to attend the station.
"Don't just cut corners and then when you get found out plead innocence. This thing has been going on for years."
The ex-officer explained that strip-searching is normally more than just outer clothing and children will be asked to remove clothing down to their vest and underwear.
He said: "That should not be done in the public domain. It should be done at least in a van or a police station."
There is no limit on age for a police strip search
Getty
He added: "Now we've got a Labour Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper we might start to see them getting a grip of those rogue officers and hopefully, it will help the good cops to call out the bad cops."
The investigation was conducted by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza who found that 3,368 strip-searches of children took place in England and Wales between January 2018 and June 2023.
The figures come in the wake of a report that revealed a "traumatic” search by Metropolitan Police in 2020, where officers strip-searched a 15-year-old black girl at school whilst she was on her period because she "smelt of cannabis".
Leroy Logan said that he hopes that Labour will help
GB News
The report stated that the impact on the secondary school pupil – referred to as Child Q – was “profound” and the repercussions “obvious and ongoing”.
Her family said at the time that she changed from a “happy-go-lucky girl to a timid recluse that hardly speaks."
The review found that her experiences are “unlikely to have been the same” if the girl was not black.