Police subjected me to a violent and degrading strip search after I was arrested for offering a legal advice card to a 15-year-old who was being stopped and searched. 

A Misconduct Panel appointed by the Metropolitan Police recently decided, on highly dubious grounds, to dismiss the case against the custody sergeant at Stoke Newington who ordered my strip search. 

This was despite a finding by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) that Sergeant Howard had a case to answer for gross misconduct. 

With the help of my lawyers, I am seeking to challenge the Panel's decision. Initially, I need to raise at least £5,000 to launch this case. However, I will then need to continue raising funds as our case progresses. 

The Panel’s logic would mean that anyone suspected of having a mental health problem could be forcibly stripped naked.

I fear that the way the police have closed ranks in response to my complaint points to a broader problem regarding the abuse of strip search powers to punish and intimidate people. Please help me draw attention to this issue and hold police accountable by sharing this page on social media and contributing if you can.

The challenge would be by way of something called judicial review, which is where a court considers whether a public body (in this case the police) has acted lawfully. If successful, we would then ask the Court to order that there be another hearing in front of a different and fair-minded Panel.

My legal case 

Arrest

On a Spring evening in 2013, I was on an estate in Hackney, East London, when I saw a group of police officers surrounding a young boy. The boy was clearly distressed and asking for his mother. I had noticed police stopping other black people on the estate and I was aware that racial profiling by the police is a serious problem,* so I was concerned by what I was seeing.

I spoke with the boy and tried to give him a ‘Know Your Rights’ card with some legal advice on it, but the police officers stopped me by grabbing my arm and pushing me back. They then arrested me, claiming I had obstructed and assaulted them, although this was untrue.

The officer in charge described me as a ‘bleeding heart lefty’ and ‘some sort of socialist’ as well as a ‘very silly girl’. 

I was later acquitted of all charges.

The magistrates found that I had not obstructed the police and they explicitly stated in their judgement, ‘We believe Ms Duff’s account’ in relation to the alleged assaults.

The boy was found to have a knife on him which I had not been aware of when I intervened.

During my arrest and transfer to Stoke Newington Police Station I acted in the spirit of ‘passive resistance’: I went limp rather than walking and I did not talk to the police except to ask for a doctor.

I was non-compliant because I felt the police were behaving like bullies. I wanted to show that I did not consent to what they were doing.

Strip search

On arriving at the police station, I was subjected to a strip search which was brutal and traumatic.

I was pinned to the floor of a cell by three female officers. I had my hands cuffed behind my back and my legs tied together while they cut off my clothes with scissors. They ripped out my earrings, grabbed my breasts roughly while turning me over, and even touched me between my legs, apparently looking for genital piercings. During the search, I could hear them talking with male officers who were standing by the open door.  

I sustained injuries including cuts and bruises on my arms and hands and a five-inch cut on my collarbone.

The officers also made mocking comments, some of which were caught on CCTV and noted as inappropriate by the IOPC report.

When the officers had me completely naked, they put me in a paper suit which didn’t do up properly, so my breasts were partly exposed, and they carried me like that through the station.

I believe Sergeant Howard ordered this strip search simply in order to punish me for my passive resistance and for standing up for the rights of the boy who was being stopped and searched – in short, for being a ‘bleeding heart lefty’ – and to intimidate me into providing my details. He had absolutely no reason to suspect I had any weapons or drugs on me, and none were found.

 As a result of my injuries, I was unable to do my final piano recital and had to defer completion of my Masters for a year. I also had to temporarily give up my job as a philosophy tutor due to stress, which left me unable to pay my rent and reliant on the hospitality of friends for several months.

I still suffer from flashbacks to the strip search and have recently been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I hate to think how a similar experience might affect someone already struggling with their mental health.

Gross misconduct hearing

The Met’s initial investigation into my complaint took several years and was thoroughly inadequate.

Subsequently, the IOPC investigated what had happened and concluded that Sergeant Howard should face a disciplinary hearing for gross misconduct. The IOPC report laid out in detail why Sergeant Howard had a case to answer and what issues the hearing would need to question him about.**

However, halfway through the hearing, which took place in August, the Panel appointed by the Metropolitan Police accepted an argument by Sergeant Howard's defence barrister that his client had no case to answer. 

The Panel Chair, Maurice Cohen, said there were ‘reasonable grounds justifying Sgt Howard's actions in authorising a strip search’ on the basis that he did not know my identity or whether I was mentally ill. 

The Panel came to this decision without even hearing evidence from Sergeant Howard or putting to him any of the questions laid out in the IOPC report. The Chair also got many of the facts of the case wrong when he tried to summarise them.

What is the next step?

The initial £5,000 will enable us to obtain the advice of a specialist barrister and to issue the judicial review claim to challenge the Panel's decision and get the legal challenge started. 

Once we have the barrister's advice, we need to issue the claim by the end of this month. Beyond the initial £5,000 we will be raising funds for the subsequent costs and stages in the judicial review.

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*For instance, a 2013 report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary found that almost a third of stop and searches were conducted without sufficient grounds  and it is still the case that black people are 8 times more likely to be stopped than white people.

**The IOPC report also found that two other officers in my case had behaved inappropriately – the officer in charge when I was arrested and one of the officers who strip searched me. These officers were subject to lower level disciplinary measures and did not face misconduct hearings.