Three Met police officers to face misconduct hearing over Child Q search

Three Metropolitan Police officers will face a misconduct hearing later this year after allegedly exposing “intimate parts” of a 15-year-old girl during a search at her school.

Trainee detective constable Kristina Linge and police constables Victoria Wray and Rafal Szmydynski conducted the search on December 3 2020 on suspicion of the black girl, previously referred to as Child Q, being in possession of cannabis, the force said.

Watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), previously said the school was in Hackney, east London, and that no drugs were found in the girl’s bags or outer clothing.

It is alleged that Pcs Linge and Szmydynski performed a search that exposed the girl’s intimate parts when this was “disproportionate in all the circumstances”.

Pcs Linge and Wray also performed or allowed the search in a manner which was “unjustified, inappropriate, disproportionate, humiliating and degrading”, it is alleged.

The search was allegedly conducted without authorisation, in the absence of an appropriate adult, and with no adequate concern being given to Child Q’s age, sex, or the need to treat her as a child.

It is also alleged that Pcs Szmydynski and Linge both gave a misleading record of the search afterwards.

Breaches by each officer of the Met’s standards of professional behaviour are alleged to amount to gross misconduct, which could lead to dismissal.

The IOPC first announced three officers would face a misconduct hearing for the incident in September 2023, after an investigation into the incident began in May 2021.

The officers, all from the force’s Central East Command Unit, will face the hearing at Palestra House in London from June 2-27.