I was a young 16 year old girl back in the 80’s and got arrested for an offence that to this day I still do not know what for. I was detained for over 7 hours and not given access to a phone call or even a solicitor. I was not even told why I was being detained. What happened to me whilst detained has haunted me since. I was taken into a room with 4 police men and one woman and was strip searched whilst the men watched sitting in a row like a show! They did internal cavity search searching for drugs I can only suspect. They found nothing as I had not committed any crime. I was then put back into a cell (I did not at all fight or cause a need for 4 policemen to watch me be stripped searched). About a hour later they released me and I was told they were not going to pursue me. For what crime to this day I still have no idea! But it has left me traumatised and haunted and I most definitely lost my faith in the police force that day.
Constabulary: N/A or Prefer not to say
Timespan: 1980s
Did you report it to the police?: No
Do you want to revisit this with the police?: Yes
Your ethnicity: Prefer not to say
Have you experienced suicidality due to this?: Prefer not to say
Are you disabled as defined under the Equality Act 2010?: No
illustration by Danny Noble
