The strip search of ‘Child Q’, a fifteen year old black girl in a London school, was headline news, sparking outrage and official inquiries. Her teachers claimed she smelled of cannabis, but no drugs were ever found.

A safeguarding report said racism a likely influencing factor in Child Q’s ordeal. The Metropolitan police admitted the strip search should never have happened.

But for some black girls and boys, humiliating – and sometimes unlawful – strip searches are nothing new.

File on 4 hears from young people who’ve been strip searched so often they’ve lost count – in their bedrooms, in children’s homes, and in the back of police vans.

We know children from ethnic minorities are being disproportionately strip searched.

File on 4 can reveal that in the last five years, on average fifty children a week were strip searched in England and Wales - a disproportionate number of them from ethnic minorities.

Reporter: Jane Deith

Producer: Hayley Mortimer

Journalism Assistant: Tim Fernley

Production Co-ordinator: Sarah Payton

Editor: Carl Johnston