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The Day London Cops Strip-Searched My 14-Year-Old Sister
There’s been much talk about Child Q in the British press. But I’ve known for years that strip-searching a schoolgirl was no isolated incident. Here’s an experience Lewisham police made sure my sister would never forget.
Our mum used to send us grocery shopping nearly every other Saturday when we were kids. From our middle-class home in Forest Hill, my sister Jacqui and I would board the 122 bus to Lewisham, filled with quite a lot of resentment. After a few months, we started pinching whatever we could from the sparkling new shopping precinct and splitting the difference between us. Of course, we knew that shoplifting was wrong; we were well-brought-up, sporadic Sunday schoolgoers. But we were still just kids, trying to make some extra pocket money and rebelling against our biweekly chore.
On this particular Saturday afternoon, my sister went shopping without me and got caught stealing packs of bacon. The coppers arrested her, strip-searched her down at the local nick, and humiliated her further by urinating on her and her clothes. Several hours later, they called my mother to come and fetch her daughter. No parent or guardian was present during the strip search, and our mother…
