Female suspects can now be strip-searched in the United Kingdom by transgender police officers – biological males who identify as females – and could be accused of a hate crime if they object to the invasive search.
The Daily Mail reports under new guidelines issued quietly last December by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) law enforcement officials must recognize the status of transgender colleagues from the moment they consider themselves to be a particular gender.
“Thus, once a Transgender colleague has transitioned, they will search persons of the same gender as their own lived gender,” the guidelines state. The existence of the new transgender rules among the U.K.’s police departments recently came to light through the work of Cathy Larkman, a police officer for over 30 years who rose to the rank of superintendent before retiring last year, according to FaithWire.
The controversial advice, issued by the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) — the body representing British police chiefs — says it may be ‘advisable’ to replace the person carrying out the search if the detainee objects, but adds: ‘If the refusal is based on discriminatory views, consideration should be given for the incident [to] be recorded as a non-crime hate incident unless the circumstances amount to a recordable crime.’
The existence of the guidance, which was quietly issued in December, has only come to light following the intrepid work of Cathy Larkman, a police officer for over 30 years who rose to the rank of superintendent before retiring last year.
According to the Daily Mail, Mrs. Larkman, 54, grew increasingly concerned with the declining trust women had in the police following a spate of scandals including the abduction and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer.
Last October, responding to fears among some women that they had no option over the sex of the officer searching them, she wrote letters to the College of Policing, the Police Federation, and the NPCC seeking clarification that this was not the case.
The mother-of-three, who is being supported by the Women’s Rights Network campaign group, knew that under existing law strip searches had to be carried out by an officer of the same sex.
