This week, EastEnders aired a storyline in which the teenage character of Avani Nandra-Hart is strip searched in custody, in a hard-hitting depiction of one of the most invasive type of search procedures that police can conduct on children (Radio Times).
The storyline provided a glimpse into the real harrowing circumstances faced by hundreds of children every year. Check the embedded link below for the full analysis of the storyline with clips.
Official records show that this happened to 702 children in London in the year to 31 March 2024, mostly boys, but very little is said about strip searches of girls in custody.
How does the show portray this? The story starts with three teenage girls (Avani Nandra-Hart, Amy Branning, Lily Slater) who have bunked off school and are heading for Walford East tube station, when a boy approaches Avani.
We learn that the boy sold her discount price vapes once. He offers to sell Avani some more, but she refuses. The boy asks if she wants ‘something a bit stronger’, producing from his pocket a small wallet of what we assume are illicit drugs. Avani refuses them.
On spotting two police officers coming down the stairs from the other side of the station concourse, the boy then rapidly makes his exit from Avani and the girls, dropping the wallet on the floor in the process.
The girls turn to see the officers approaching them. One asks why they aren’t in school today. Avani lies, but is caught out, then proceeds to spin another story involving Lily, and asks to be let off.
The same officer then spots the wallet and goes to inspect it. On finding pills, she asks Avani if she dropped it, which Avani denies. Unconvinced, the officers take the girls to Walford police station.
! We do not see if the girls are informed of the purpose of their detention
! The officers do not decide to conduct a JOG (Jacket Outer coat Gloves) search under section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act
At the police station, one of the other girls, Amy, is questioned by her father Jack Branning, who happens to be a detective inspector there. He suspects Avani is dealing. Amy rejects this.
Elsewhere, Avani is being detained by two officers. As her parents are yet to be contacted, an appropriate adult is also present. Avani restates her innocence in response to the station officer remark that she is under suspicion for possession of class A drugs.
In between scenes, Amy tells Jack that Avani used to sell vapes, but the drugs were ‘from some guy that she met at the tube’.
Putting two and two together, Jack then tells the officers who brought the girls in that Avani is friends with a drug dealer, which the officers interpret as a green light to return to the cell to conduct a strip search.
Meanwhile, in the classic soap drama convention of a character-unavailable-at-the-point-of-greatest-need, we see both her parents’ mobile phones ringing but neither of them pick up the call.
! We still have no indication of whether the officers have conducted any less invasive searches prior to this
! It never crosses detective inspector Jack Branning’s mind to request the Walford East tube station’s CCTV footage in order to verify Avani’s story
The next time we see Avani, her friends have been released, but she remains detained. The station officer challenges her to explain why drugs were found at her feet at the tube station. Again, Avani protests her innocence, with humour, but this time is visibly anxious.
Despite her denials, the station officer believes there are reasonable grounds to suspect Avani is in possession of controlled drugs and states his colleagues have been authorised to conduct a strip search. The scene ends with an agitated Avani struggling to process the outcome.
Before the strip search takes place, one of the officers tells Avani she has ‘the right to request the appropriate adult remains present’. It is actually the case that an appropriate adult MUST be present unless the child requests them to leave.
After Avani’s strip search, the officers are satisfied nothing is found. Avani’s grandmother Suki Panesar arrives at the station to pick her up. The station officer explains to Suki that Avani was picked up at the tube station where ‘a package of tablets was found at her feet’
He proceeds to say: ‘we had reason to suspect she was carrying further drugs’, so his officers brought Avani into custody ‘for the purpose of searching and safeguarding to ensure she wouldn’t take the drugs herself’.
The station officer claims his colleagues followed standard procedure, admitting to Suki that no more drugs were found… but not before they deemed Avani’s behaviour to place her ‘at further risk of harm’ and making a referral to Social Services.
The station officer also admitted that there wasn’t enough evidence to determine whether the drugs were in Avani’s possession, but insists there was a ‘valid line of enquiry’ since Avani was ‘refusing to cooperate’ with police questioning.
‘Refusing to cooperate’ = ‘making sarcastic comments’ and ‘refusing to provide a convincing reason as to why she was next to the drugs’
In summary, following ‘search guidelines based on reasonable suspicion’, officers made a 15-year-old child take her clothes off in front of them because they didn’t believe her claims.
‘Reasonable suspicion’ = no evidence beyond speculation + judgments based on prior activity
It is important to remember that this is a generous set of circumstances compared with that of Child Q and others strip searched by police forces in real life.
The exchange ends with the station officer’s offer to get the searching officers involved to explain their actions.
Between Avani’s pleas to go home, and the ‘nothing more can be done here’ stare from the station officer, Suki senses the futility of the situation and decides not to take up his offer. This exemplifies how paralysing the process can feel for people who engage with it.
This theme and more are covered in our upcoming qualitative research project into the stop and search experiences of young women and girls. You can find out more via the link below.