Officers at Skegness police station forced the girl to wait for ten minutes without any clothing after they took away her garments and removed her underwear.
The officers claim they had taken preventative measures as the girl had threatened to harm herself.
She was provided with an ‘anti-rip suit’ but only after one male officer pushed her twice while she stood undressed.
The next day the girl complained to a
sergeant and said she had been ‘violated’ but the complaint was not
referred to the local authority.
The alleged incident was revealed in Her
Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary report into police custody suites
in Lincolnshire.
The HMIC report revealed that officers were ‘too ready to remove clothing…with too little consideration for dignity’.
It read: ‘She threatened self-harm and
firstly had her bra removed by two female staff, who returned shortly
afterwards with an anti-rip suit.
‘Staff appeared to spend some time
negotiating with the girl before she was restrained; staff then left the
cell, inexplicably, taking the anti-rip suit with them, leaving the
girl naked in her cell for a period of around ten minutes.’
‘The vulnerability of this girl in police
custody was compounded by her being left naked in a cell. Not enough was
done to maintain her dignity.’
The report concluded that the case was ‘unacceptable and demeaning’.
Responding to the criticism, Lincolnshire Police Deputy Chief Constable Heather Roach told the Daily Mail:
‘The fact of this case is that the custody officers were concerned that
she would harm herself and decided that she needed to be given an
anti-rip suit.‘We were particularly concerned for her safety and mental state.’
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