School deputy safeguard did not expect girl, 15, to be strip searched by police

Independent

3 days ago

The staff member whose telephone call led to a 15-year-old girl being stripped searched by police at school while on her period said she did not ask for the intimate search.
The deputy safeguarding manager said she was 'highly suspicious' that the black schoolgirl known only as Child Q, had cannabis on her but she called on the advice of the designated police safer schools officer (SSO) and 'absolutely' did not ask for a strip search.
The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was giving evidence at the London misconduct hearing for Metropolitan Police officers trainee Detective Constable Kristina Linge and Police Constables Victoria Wray and Rafal Szmydynski.
All three officers were Pcs at the time of the search which allegedly took place without an appropriate adult present in Hackney, east London on December 3 2020.
The safeguarding deputy told the hearing she was 'really shocked' when she later heard that the girl had been strip searched.
Child Q was wrongly accused of carrying cannabis. Nothing was found.
She had arrived at school for a mock exam, smelling of cannabis and was taken to the medical room to be strip searched while teachers remained outside.
The police search involved the removal of Child Q's clothing including her underwear, her bending over and having to expose intimate parts of her body.
Nothing was found when teachers searched Child Q's jacket, pockets, bag and shoes before police were called, the tribunal heard.
Under questioning from Luke Ponte, for Linge, the safeguarding deputy accepted that she believed 'Child Q was stoned' and was 'very clearly out of it'.
The safeguarding deputy spoke to the headteacher and called the SSO, who is a police officer that liaises with schools, for advice.
She then called the force, telling the hearing: 'I believed that she had weed on her because I could smell it so strongly.'
She thought Child Q could possibly have stuffed it down her shirt or hidden it in her bra but she told the panel she was not asking for a strip search.
This was now a safeguarding issue and there were concerns for Child Q, who could potentially have been carrying drugs for someone else, being exploited or groomed and there was also the other students to look after, the tribunal was told.
After speaking to the SSO, the safeguarding deputy thought that it was 'protocol' that a second female police officer was called to the school.
The panel has heard that this 'most intrusive' form of search of a child should only be used where 'necessary and reasonable', must have authorisation from a sergeant, and involve an appropriate adult.
It must also be recorded and two same sex officers are required if intimate parts will be exposed.
Mr Ponte suggested the safeguarding deputy was 'adamant' that Child Q had illegal drugs on her when she contacted the police.
The safeguarding deputy said: 'Adamant is the wrong word. Adamant comes across that I am 100% (certain). I am highly suspicious. I am of an opinion and have given it to the headteacher.'
The safeguarding deputy said that in her call to the SSO there was 'no mention of any strip search' and she was advised to call the force on 101.
She also doubted parts of the transcript of her 101 call to police, that was read at the tribunal, in which she was said to have called for a more thorough search.
In the call the safeguarding deputy is said to have told the operator that 'it's evident that it (drugs) is on her' as she described her suspicions about Child Q carrying drugs.
But the safeguarding deputy told the hearing: 'I cannot imagine saying that.'
She also said she was not acting as an appropriate adult when she was outside medical room while the officers were alone with Child Q.
She knew Child Q had been searched because the officers had said they found nothing but assumed it may have been a pat down.
The context of making the call to the police was not a 'sinister and desperate attempt to get this student searched' which is the way she felt it was being presented to her at the tribunal.
She said she did not remember telling the operator that she wanted a more thorough search.
Mr Ponte told her: 'It is only the officers' decision making that matters in this hearing. I suggest to you that you wanted a strip search to happen that day.'
The safeguarding deputy replied: 'Absolutely not.'
Mr Ponte told her: 'You asked for a strip search to happen that day… You were aware a strip search was happening.'
The deputy safeguarding said 'no' to both statements.
She also denied Mr Ponte's suggestion she was 'not being entirely honest in your accounts and have tried to distance yourself from events that happened that day'.
Pcs Linge and Szmydynski performed a search that exposed the girl's intimate parts when this was 'disproportionate in all the circumstances', according to the allegations.
Pcs Linge and Wray also performed or allowed the search in a manner which was 'unjustified, inappropriate, disproportionate, humiliating and degrading'.
All of this happened 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, it is also alleged.
It is also claimed that Pcs Szmydynski and Linge both gave a misleading record of the search afterwards.
No contemporaneous record was made about the search, either in the officers' pocket notebooks or on a standard form – as would be routine for any stop and search in the street.