Police forces withdraw unlawful search policies

Six police forces have now folded to our legal challenge and will not be defending their unlawful policies in relation to officers with gender-recognition certificates (GRCs). However, we are concerned that they are issuing new policies that are still not lawful. 

Following the For Women Scotland judgment, the British Transport Police (BTP) has told us that it has now withdrawn its searching policy, which we had challenged. 

Where it previously contended that a male officer with a GRC “is female” the BTP now admits that for the purpose of the law on searching, a GRC does not change a person’s sex. In legal terms, it says section 9(3) of the Gender Recognition Act applies to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. 

Yet on 3rd May it was reported that Merseyside, Northumbria, Surrey and Sussex police forces still had policies that allowed trans officers to conduct strip-searches on detainees of the opposite sex.

So we sent them all letters before action. This week they all responded saying they are withdrawing their policies.

• Merseyside Police now says that it has withdrawn its policy and that Annex L will be disapplied. 
• Northumbria Police says it has withdrawn its policy and has adopted new guidance from the NPCC.
• Surrey Police and Sussex Police both say that they have withdrawn their policy and will be publishing a new policy by 30th June. Similar to BTP, they recognise that Section 9(1) of the Gender Recognition Act does not impact upon the definition of sex in Part V PACE. 
• The Metropolitan Police says it has withdrawn its policy and that as of 22nd May 2025 it has adopted new guidance from the NPCC.

While all these police forces are now saying that they are dropping their policies of allowing police officers with GRCs to search people of the opposite sex, they still want to provide the option of “gender identity” based searches for trans-identifying detainees “by consent”. This means that if a male detainee says they are trans the police force will try to find a female officer willing to do the search. 

We shouldn’t have to hold individual police forces to account one by one for them to fall into line and meet their basic obligations to respect the law. We have written to the Home Secretary and asked her to take action. 

Part of the problem is that since 2012 the government’s own statutory guidance has told police forces the wrong thing. This code of practice (Annex L of Code C) remains in force and the Home Office has said nothing about updating it. It still says that a GRC changes a person’s sex for the purposes of searching and says that in any case a detainee should be searched according to the gender they prefer. 

While the old unlawful policies are being scrapped, the National Police Chiefs’ Council has been scrambling to find a new loophole to bring gender self-ID back. Its new guidance on “Searching by Transgender officers and employees of the Police and the Searching of Transgender detainees” recognises that strip-searches and searches in custody carried out under PACE must be carried out by officers of the same sex as those being searched. But it says that detainees can request to be searched “by an officer of their gender” if these searches are carried out with written consent. PACE does not provide for such “consensual searches”, nor does it recognise “gender”. We think this remains unlawful.

As part of our initial claim against BTP we submitted evidence from interviews with female officers who emphasised that in the male-dominated and hierarchical environment of policing it would be difficult for them to refuse a request to strip-search a “trans woman”, despite the humiliation and degradation they would feel in searching such a man. 

They feared that a female officer who does not agree to carry out such a search would be perceived as “transphobic”, weak or unprofessional and would be put under pressure. Given that so many police forces have been and remain members of Stonewall, and that until recently all police chiefs endorsed the idea of gender self-ID and promoted a misinterpretion of the Equality Act, this seems a reasonable fear. 

The Police Federation has also expressed serious concerns regarding the legality of the guidance and the practical implications for its members, who will be responsible for implementing this guidance. The Police Federation says that it believes that the only lawful option following the Supreme Court decision is to exempt transsexual officers from searching either biological sex and that this should be the default situation for all transsexual officers.

We are calling on the Home Secretary to: 

• write to all police forces and ask them urgently to confirm that they have withdrawn their unlawful policies and will comply with PACE, based on an ordinary understanding of biological sex
• urgently withdraw Annex L of PACE Code C and replace it with clear, simple sex-based guidance which ensures that transgender people are treated with respect in line with their actual sex
• tell the NPCC to bring its new guidance into line with PACE and to direct officers to undertake strip-searches only of individuals of the same sex, based on their good-faith judgment. 

What would a good searching policy look like? 

Strip-searching is a significant invasion of privacy for anyone. It engages Article 8: the right to respect for private and family life. It must be carried out in a way that is lawful, necessary and proportionate (that is, justified in order to protect national security or public safety, prevent crime or protect the rights and freedoms of other people). 

The Equality Act requires that everyone should be able to be lawfully searched under PACE. A lawful search is one done under PACE, not one that tries to get around the law. 

This means that police forces and officers need clear guidance that they should only undertake same-sex searches (beyond outer garments); that they should treat transgender people with respect and that they should follow an established protocol if they are not sure what sex someone is, or if there is some dispute about this.

When establishing whether a person to be searched is male or female we suggest the following approach which is designed to ensure clarity, maintain dignity and secure co-operation:

A proposed approach for a revised Annex L

(a) The search procedure should be explained, including that the detainee will be searched by a person of the same sex.

(b) If there is any doubt what sex the person is, they should be asked to confirm their sex. 

(c) A person should be treated as the sex they say they are unless and until there is reasonable evidence to think otherwise.

(d) If the person is unwilling to confirm what sex they are they should be treated in good faith as being the sex which they appear to be unless and until there is reasonable evidence to think otherwise.

(e) If there are any doubts about which sex an individual is, each officer responsible for the search, procedure or requirement should where possible be advised before the search or procedure starts of any doubts as to the person’s sex and the person informed that the doubts have been disclosed. This is important so as to maintain the dignity of the person and any officers concerned.

(f) If at any time there is doubt as to whether the person is the sex that they say they are, or have been assumed to be, the search should be paused if safe to do so and the situation reassessed.

All such searches must be carried out with courtesy, consideration and respect for the person concerned, including those who may identify as transsexual, transgender or transvestite. However, this cannot include disregarding or wrongly recording their sex.