Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answers I gave earlier, and we will know these things when the IOPC concludes, which I hope it will shortly.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

In the past three years Metropolitan police officers have been jailed for posing for selfies next to the bodies of black murdered sisters, a serving officer has been found guilty of Sarah Everard’s horrific murder, racist, sexist and homophobic messages between officers have been dismissed as “banter” internally only to have been described as “shocking” by the independent watchdog, and now we learn that Met officers strip-searched a 15-year-old black child at her school, inflicting trauma that will last for years to come. This is obviously not about blaming every single officer, but will the Minister accept that this is not just a few bad apples but reveals a deeper problem of institutional racism and misogyny at the Me? Will the Minister finally answer, rather than just leave, a question that has been asked three times: when did he find out about the case of child Q?

[Kit Malthouse]

We obviously accept that there is an issue to be addressed, which is why we commissioned the Angiolini review and why we are supporting Dame Louise Casey.