A SENIOR officer at Cumbria Police has said he is ‘fully aware of the impact’ that strip-searching children can have.

A report by the Children's Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel De Souza, found thousands of cases of children being strip-searched across England and Wales.

Her research found Cumbria Constabulary carried out fewer than 10 strip-searches of children aged between eight and 17 from 2018 to mid-2022.

This means the force has used the practice – although exact figures for forces with fewer than 10 searches have been suppressed to preserve anonymity.

However, the research revealed a total of 2,847 strip-searches took place between 2018 and mid-2022 of children aged between eight and 17 across England and Wales.

The report noted as several forces did not respond to their request, this figure should be considered a minimum.

The investigation comes after a fifteen-year-old black girl from East London known as 'Child Q' was strip-searched by the Met Police in 2020 without another adult present.

The incident sparked protests when it came to light in 2022.

Across England and Wales the vast majority of youngsters strip-searched were boys (95 per cent) and about 38 per cent of children strip-searched were black.

Police guidelines state searches should only be carried out within view of officers of the same gender – but the Commissioner found 6 per cent had taken place in the presence of an officer of another gender.

Chief Superintendent Matt Kennerley, Cumbria Constabulary, said: “We would welcome strengthened national guidelines and data collection in relation to the use of strip-search powers on under-18s.

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“We are fully aware of the impact that use of such a power can have on a child and can reassure the public that considerable scrutiny is applied to its use in our county.

“As the report indicates in Cumbria, the use of strip-search on under-18s is incredibly rare. Unfortunately there will be occasions where we have to search children, especially where safety is an issue.

"We will always review each one of these searches in order to ensure that it absolutely necessary to protect the individual or others, and that we comply with national guidance.

“We have already improved how we record searches, the detail and the rationale to support transparency.

“We have also improved our own internal reviews of stop searches, including reviewing the paperwork and body-worn video of interactions.

"We also have data analytical products which allow us to quicky review disproportionality in any application.

“We submit our stop searches to an external scrutiny committee made up of independent members of our community. All of this is to hold officers to the highest account when they use policing powers.”