'In all cases featured, there are examples of extremely poor, indefensible and inhumane treatment'
The 'culture in place' at Greater Manchester Police was described as 'clearly problematic' today as a damning report on the 'horror story' treatment of a number of women and men in custody of the force after their arrest was published.
Dame Vera - a former police and crime commissioner and national victims' commissioner - carried out The Baird Inquiry on behalf of the mayor of Greater Manchester. Her report, published today, examined 14 cases of 11 women and three men - and referenced many of their harrowing and humiliating stories in custody suites and cells.
Dame Vera said: "All of the people in this inquiry who were strip-searched voiced, and do in the report, that it was deliberately done to humilate them, to subordinate them - or to show them who was the boss. Recommendations must follow. The first is that we must stop strip-searching people for welfare purposes entirely - to avoid people being strip-searched for 'p***ing' off a custody sergeant'.
"But I think you don't manage to throw it all up in the air and bring it down the way that you want it to go. That culture is, I fear, a problem and is - albeit this is a tiny sample - shining through all that I have seen in the few months that I have been involved in this. She said: "Because the defensiveness is perfectly obvious. It is massively damaging to public confidence. Although the mayoralty gets some appeals, very few people complain because they don't believe in it and very few people who get attacked when they do complain go on. And so the mayoralty cannot see entirely what is happening."
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