New figures have revealed 20 children were strip-searched by Greater Manchester Police over a four-year period. It represents just one per cent of the total number of searches carried out under police stop and search powers between 2018 and mid-2022.
The figures have been published by the office of the Children's Commissioner for England (CCo). In Cheshire, the figure stands at 10, with 56 children strip-searched by police in neighbouring Lancashire over the same period.
The commissioner ordered the report after the Child Q scandal which came to light last March. The 15-year-old black schoolgirl was strip-searched by police while on her period after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis at school.
Scotland Yard later apologised and said the strip-search at the girl's school in 2020 without another adult present 'should never have happened'.