June 2025: Child-centred police abuse
Is the outcome of the misconduct hearing over Child Q a watershed moment in policing, or yet another false dawn?
Dear StopWatchers,
The heat is on for police forces across the country as we hit the summer season. The fallout from the misconduct hearing over Child Q and other reports of officers abusing their power towards children published this month provide a disturbing glimpse into the profession’s attitudes towards minors.
These stories chime with the findings of our research project looking into the stop and search experiences of girls and young women, which we held an event for at parliament. Many thanks to Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP for sponsoring it (and her support for the project for its beginning), to everyone who attended, to the research team (see Instagram link below) who put the report together, and to the brave girls and young women who shared their stories, all with the hope of making change.
We hope you enjoy this edition of the newsletter.
Child-centred police abuse
So, there we have it. Four years on from the infamous Child Q incident, a panel has dismissed two Met police officers who strip-searched the teenager at her school for gross misconduct at a public hearing in London. A third was ruled to have committed misconduct and given a final written warning (BBC News, Sky News, 26 Jun). If you’re thinking that the outcome is obvious, please consider that at a hearing composed entirely of men, almost all white, the panel could not bring themselves to admit did not think age or race played a factor in the treatment of a Black girl. This is despite officers alluding in their accounts to the fact that Child Q was ‘tall’ and ‘mature’ for her age, amongst other things.
As always, it seems as though it is impossible for racism to be proven against police unless it is of the most overt and extreme kind. There remains, in 2025, a complete inability to acknowledge that racism is pervasive and perpetrated through more than just words.
But what should we expect from a force whose leader refuses to accept its long acknowledged institutional racism? At least a degree of procedural competence, perhaps? Well, details of the search that emerged from the four-week hearing suggested quite the opposite on the part of the officers:
Counsel for one of the officers claimed that the rules around stop and search were ‘extremely complex’ and that ‘officers cannot be expected to remember them all’. However, notwithstanding the supposed complexities of different types of search, the most basic procedures were not followed: there was no record made for this search, despite it being stated that this was an exceptionally rare situation and type of search that most officers would never encounter.
An inspector from the stop and search team told the panel that there are 5 levels of search. Yet PACE Code A and the College of Policing authorised professional practice (APP) guidance outline 3 types of search (JOG, MTS, EIP). Furthermore, one of the officers questioned claimed that an altogether different term – ‘further search’ – was a commonly used and understood term within the force. The lack of clarity over the interpretation of relatively straightforward guidelines raises doubts about the intentions of officers to act according to a sense of duty rather than self-preservation.
Taken alongside the attitudes of the teachers involved, the collective failure to contact Child Q’s mother and the lack of an appropriate adult present, the sum of procedural failings led to Child Q feeling ‘physically violated’ and unable to give evidence at the hearing because of the effect of the incident on her mental health.
Responses from the Met and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) show an eagerness to assure us that things have changed for the better. The police watchdog claimed that ‘the work we have done since Child Q means we now have the right safeguards in place’ for strip-searches.
Others, such as the Children’s Commissioner, are less convinced:
Since Child Q’s case came to light, I have used my statutory powers to investigate the strip searching of children by police, and while there have been some signs of improvement in how searches are carried out and recorded, too many strip searches today are unnecessary, unsafe and underreported.
One outcome of this case is the creation of the concept of so-called ‘child-centred policing’: the idea that when engaging with children, police see the child first, with the inherent vulnerabilities and protected characteristics befitting their status relative to adults.
This seems sensible… except for the fact that we regularly come across instances of officers displaying an attitude to children’s human rights that could be described as ambivalent at best. We remember that Met firearms officers were cleared over their treatment and wrongful arrest of Child X last year. We know that there will be a hearing in October over another strip-search, this time of Child A in 2022 (BBC News, 14 Jun). And this month Dorset police dismissed an officer over the assault of a teenage boy during an arrest (BBC News Dorset, 13 Jun).
Another legacy of the Child Q case was to highlight the phenomenon of officers stationed in schools, the backlash from which may have contributed to the dissolution of all 371 Safer Schools Officers in London schools (Youth Justice Legal Centre, 09 Jun). And rightly so. There is no compatible argument in defence of children’s rights, freedoms, and safety that can accommodate a profession able to regularly use force (sometimes armed) against them. The Child Q case demonstrates that, if anything, police centring their attentions on children can make things worse.
However, it is important to note that those 371 officers will be transitioned to the role of Designated Ward Officer, re-joining the many others patrolling the spaces children travel and inhabit between their home and school. So children today are absolutely right to be fearful, not just that about what happened to Child Q but that any one or a combination of intimidatory tactics deployed by adult officers in the other cases mentioned could happen to them (BBC News, 26 Jun). One of the teenagers interviewed in the aftermath of the case told the broadcaster that although the local community in east London came together to demand answers of the Met, he felt that they ‘shouldn’t have to do all of that, since [officers] are supposed to make us feel protected, instead of threatened’.
Unfortunately, the impression of child-centred policing in practice appears closer to an effort to control the circumstances under which children interact with the police, dominating encounters in such a way so as to institutionalise violent abuse against those they regard as wrong ’uns. There may no longer be corporal punishment in Britain’s schools, but there is clearly an appetite amongst the rank-and-file to deliver it on our streets and in our custody suites.
To put it another way, child-centred policing looks a lot like police officers teaching unruly kids a lesson they won’t forget. And the knock-on effects are evident: Child Q reported feeling unsure that she will ‘feel normal again’, while other children have spoken about how unpleasant stop-search experiences linger in their memories long after the encounter. This is a sad indictment of how far things have come since December 2020. As Child Q’s mother said in a statement:
After waiting more than four years I have come every day to the gross misconduct hearing for answers and although I am relieved that two of the officers have been fired I believe that the Metropolitan Police still has a huge amount of work to do if they are to win back the confidence of Black Londoners.
A note on funding
You will have noted a reference in the above article to (former) PC Lorne Castle, who has been on a public relations charge to get his job back after assaulting a teenager in Bournemouth town centre. Somehow, the GoFundMe for his appeal has so far raised over £100,000, despite revelations about his past conduct coming to light on Twitter (credit to
).This is the sort of thing we’re up against, and this is why we do what we do. But we can’t do it without your help. If you have any money to give, we’d appreciate it if you gave via our Donate page. Thank you.
Deaths from police contact, cases old and new
Lewis Dent
On 29 May 2025 the inquest into the death of Lewis John Dent concluded, with a finding of misadventure. Lewis died following contact with Hertfordshire police officers on 10 February 2022. The inquest heard evidence that the police officers who had stopped and detained Lewis suspected that he had swallowed Class A drugs, which should have been treated as a medical emergency, according to their training and guidance. Instead, Lewis was detained in handcuffs in the back of a police car whilst a search of his car was conducted. The family’s opinion is that, despite the situation being one of a medical emergency, Lewis was not monitored for signs of a deterioration in his health (Bindmans, 03 Jun).
Godrick Osei
Godrick Osei died on 03 July 2022 following restraint by Devon & Cornwall police during a mental health crisis. 8 Devon and Cornwall police officers attended the scene, a care home, where Osei was hiding from what he believed to be people with guns chasing him. On entering the home, PC Boxall immediately told PC Grimstead to ‘red dot him’ with her Taser. Having complied with their initial commands, Osei asked them if they were really the police, and if he could see their badges, to which PC Boxall replied: ‘We’re in uniform we don’t need to show you a badge turn around and face the wall.’ PC Boxall then dragged Osei across the floor by his collar and put pressure on his shoulder whilst saying ‘get your arse down there and fucking stay there’. While handcuffed, Osei began to suffer a medical collapse under restraint. Police admitted at the inquest that they had been trained in controversially named Acute Behavioural Disturbance techniques, but they did not at the time recognise signs of it despite Osei’s presentation. They also misidentified him as another Black man alleged to have committed an offence earlier that day.
The Coroner agreed with the family’s submission that there was sufficient evidence to go to the jury for a conclusion of unlawful killing on an unlawful act manslaughter basis. The jury did not return an unlawful killing conclusion, but they did find that the psychological distress Osei experienced from his interactions with the police exacerbated his ABD which they recorded as part of his cause of death.
Osei’s family said: ‘Godrick didn’t need force, he needed compassion. He called for help, but instead, he was treated like a threat. Our hearts are broken, and we will never stop seeking justice for the inhumanity he suffered.’ (INQUEST, 06 Jun)
Other news
Warwickshire police latest force to buy the anti-crime AI snake oil: Responding to Stratford-on-Avon District Council’s overview and scrutiny committee, chief superintendent Mike Smith and police and crime commissioner Philip Seccombe revealed that the force is in discussions with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) company about integrating the technology into ‘some low-risk areas’. Answering councillor Jenny Fradgley, Mr Seccombe also explained how AI was helping to process ‘around 30,000 vetting applications each year’, and the integration of robotics in order to save costs. Mr Smith told the committee that AI is ‘absolutely gaining pace, quite rapidly actually’ and that ‘all forces are starting to tread carefully into this area because there are some risks with it.’ (CoventryLive, 2 Jun)
Week-long knife finding scheme exposes ineffectiveness of stop and search: The results of Merseyside police’s Operation Sceptre initiative last month suggest the knife bin amnesty method retrieves more bladed weapons than stop and search tactics. According to their press release (screenshot below), 50 weapons were ‘voluntarily surrendered by members of the public’ compared with 14 knives seized by all other measures, including 218 stop-searches.
Met pays £25,000 compensation for yet another case of Driving While Black: WG, a Black man, was driving home from work in early 2022 when he was stopped by Metropolitan police officers outside his home. Despite exiting his vehicle as requested and explaining to the officers that he was outside his home, he was immediately detained and handcuffed for a prolonged period. He was subsequently breathalysed before being released with no further action taken given that he had not drunk any alcohol that evening.
Despite a highly critical report by the IOPC, a Met Directorate of Professional Standards investigation failed to uphold any complaints against the officers involved on two separate occasions. WG subsequently pursued a civil claim against the force for assault, false imprisonment and race discrimination, to which they have been forced to pay WG £25,000 in damages (Bhatt Murphy, 19 Jun).
Police unit blocks release of info about Palantir: Civil liberties group Big Brother Watch has lodged a formal complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) urging a formal investigation into the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Central Referral Unit (CRU), a secretive team previously linked to blocking information requests.
Journalist have discovered that numerous freedom of information requests about secret Palantir contracts with UK police forces referred to the CRU were given advice to issue an ‘NCND’ — a refusal to ‘neither confirm nor deny’ any information ‘that may or may not be held in relation to Palantir software used for covert purposes.’ This is despite a policing ‘covenant’ that promises that ‘all use of AI will be subject to “maximum transparency by default”’.
This follows an investigation led by Liberty Investigates which revealed how Palantir has established a ‘real-time data-sharing network’ with some forces that includes sensitive personal details of vulnerable victims, children and witnesses alongside suspects. (Democracy for Sale, 26 Jun)
Racial gap in diversion scheme offers: A new report from the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has found that Black children are 15% less likely than white children to be offered diversion away from punitive criminal justice measures for similar types of offences following police contact. The authors claim that this racial gap points to ‘systemic inequities’.
The study examined almost 265,000 records of children aged 10 to 17 years who were arrested by Met police, or where a decision was made to take further action after a stop and search, between 2015 to 2022. It also found that children arrested in outer London, which tended to be whiter, were more likely to avoid being criminalised than those in inner London. Ciaran Thapar of the YEF said: ‘This important research suggests that a Black child in Lambeth who is arrested for the same crime as a white child in Kingston upon Thames can expect to have a very different experience of policing and chance of being diverted from court. This is a worrying inconsistency … It potentially means that arrested Black children are becoming disproportionately and unnecessarily criminalised by the justice system early on in their lives.’ (The Guardian, 27 Jun)
Section 60 watch*
Merseyside
Toxteth, Liverpool (13 Jun)
* This is not a comprehensive list
Stay safe,
StopWatch.