The revelation that a black schoolgirl was strip-searched by police at school in Hackney, east London, after teachers claimed that they smelt marijuana on her, is shocking. But the details of the search, the indignities inflicted on a 15-year-old girl, are truly distasteful.
She was made to strip naked, to spread her legs, to use her hands to spread her buttock cheeks and then to cough. She was menstruating. According to family members, the police insisted that she take off the bloody pad and would not let her go to the toilet to clean up. Then they made her reuse the same pad.
