Licensees for serious misconduct. Two London police officers were laid off this Thursday, after having imposed a full excavation on a 15-year-old teenager in 2020, in a case that had caused a keen stir in the United Kingdom.
The naked excavation had been imposed on a black teenager in the infirmary of her school. She had been led by two police officers, without the presence of a third -party adult and while the girl had her period.
Rightly suspected of having hidden cannabis, the girl had been deeply traumatized by this affair. This had resulted in several events in the London district of Hackney, known for its multicultural population.
A “disproportionate” and “humiliating” excavation
The excavation was “disproportionate”, “useless” and “humiliating” for the teenager, said Jason Prins, the president of the disciplinary committee. However, he estimated that the teenager’s skin color had not been a factor in the way it had been treated.
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The two agents who decided to excavate, a man and a woman, committed a serious fault, concluded a disciplinary hearing on Thursday. They were both dismissed without notice.
Another policewoman, who drove the excavation with her colleague, received a warning for professional misconduct.
“A lasting impact” on the well-being of the teenager
“At the heart of this case was a child, in a vulnerability position, which the agents did not protected and that they have unjustifiedly submitted to a naked excavation,” deplored the police director, the IOPC, Amanda Rowe.
“We know that this incident had a significant and lasting impact on its well-being,” she said.
Beyond the faults of the agents, the commander of the London police Kevin Southworth acknowledged that there had been “organizational failures”. But this case prompted the police to make changes in their practices, he assured.
Even last summer, the British childhood commissioner alerted to the full excavations made by the police on minors, often deeming them “useless”.
They target black children four times more than the rest of the population, she also said. But the number of excavations fell (-42 % in 2022 compared to 2020), especially in London, had stressed the commissioner.
