Child Q strip-search officer admits failings

A police officer accused of carrying out an unjustified strip-search on a 15-year-old black girl at an east London school has said she accepts she failed in her duties and the search should never have happened.

The girl, known as Child Q, was wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis and forced to expose her intimate parts at her school in Hackney in December 2020.

No drugs were found and a further search of her hair was also carried out by officers which led to the same outcome.

Trainee Det Con Kristina Linge, one of the female officers who carried out the strip-search, told a gross misconduct hearing she had "absolutely" acted in good faith but accepted causing upset, for which she apologised.

When asked if she would have done anything differently had Child Q been white, 46-year-old Det Con Linge answered "no".

Two other officers, PC Victoria Wray and PC Rafal Szmydynski, are also accused of breaching professional police standards after allegedly being involved in an "unjustified", "disproportionate" and "demeaning" strip-search.

All three officers deny gross misconduct.

Despite admitting a number of failures that day, Det Con Linge told the panel she had tried to make Child Q "as comfortable as possible".

"I understood that she is a juvenile, I took all the precautions to avoid embarrassment."

Det Con Linge joined the Met Police in 2018 and was still in her probationary period when the search took place.

She told the panel in south-east London that Child Q "did not want her mum to be called or informed about the search" and that the school's deputy safeguarding manager acted as the appropriate adult, standing outside in the corridor while the search took place.

Det Con Linge also said she thought police training on all levels of searches was not adequate.

When asked about conversations with staff at the school, after they failed to find drugs on the teenager, Det Con Linge said the head teacher "was adamant that the school girl had drugs and [was] compliant with the girl to be searched".

Under cross examination, Det Con Linge broke down in tears when asked about why she did not complete a record of the strip search on the police database until five weeks later.

"I remember starting it but didn't complete it. I forgot," she said.

When asked whether she was burying her hand in the sand and ignoring it, she replied: "No. You can't ignore a significant event, I knew there were going to be precautions. It wasn't deliberate.

"Nothing goes away in policing. I wouldn't blame anyone else for my own mistakes."

The hearing continues.

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