Help us to stop abusive police searching policies

About the case

What are the outline facts? 

In December 2024 Sex Matters sought a judicial review to challenge abusive guidance from British Transport Police (BTP), which allowed male officers with gender-recognition certificates to search female detainees – including strip-searching them. Early in 2025 our challenge was stayed by the court  awaiting the Supreme Court judgment in the case of For Women Scotland (FWS). 

After that judgment was handed down in April 2025, BTP withdrew the guidance. But rather than accepting the clear reasoning of FWS, BTP and the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), which provides model policies used by all police forces, continued to seek ways to get around the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE). This law, which governs the use of police powers, makes clear that any search that goes beyond taking off outer clothing including hat, coat and gloves (a “strip search”) can be carried out only by an officer of the same sex as the detained person. 

The NPCC’s replacement guidance now says detainees with a trans identity may ask to be strip-searched by an officer of the opposite sex, and if such an officer can be found the search will proceed on the basis of a common-law power of “consent”. 

The NPCC guidance claims that officers who refuse to carry out an opposite-sex strip-search will not suffer any career detriment. We disagree. We also believe the guidance will lead to discrimination and harassment of female officers.

What is the legal “cause of action”? 

Under PACE, strip searches must be carried out by an officer of the same sex as the detained person. It is well-established under domestic and international case law and guidance, including from the European Court of Human Rights, that a failure to carry out single-sex searches is a breach of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (inhuman or degrading treatment).

We say PACE is the only lawful basis for a strip search. We were granted permission to seek a judicial review of NPCC’s and BTP’s adoption and promotion of this guidance on the ground that it is in breach of section 54 of PACE and there is no common-law power to carry out opposite-sex strip searches. The hearing of this claim will take place on Tuesday 16th June 2026.  

How strong is the case? 

Following concessions by NPCC and BTP, our ground 2 (breach of the public-sector equality duty) and ground 3 (that NPCC would default to Annex L, a later addition to PACE, if its current guidance is quashed by the court) have been settled. Therefore the court will only be considering ground 1 (that the guidance is contrary to PACE).

NPCC and BTP state that there is a common-law power to carry out opposite-sex strip searches because a police officer can do anything that an ordinary citizen can. On the basis that an ordinary citizen can conduct a strip search with someone’s consent, their defence is that a police officer must be able to do the same thing. Our legal team believes that the police do not have this power and that any common-law powers to carry out strip searches are excluded by PACE. 

Our legal team has assessed the case as having good prospects of success, on the basis that PACE is the only lawful basis for strip searches to be carried out by the police, and that PACE does not permit opposite-sex searches.  

Find out more

• Statement of facts and grounds
• Our skeleton argument
• Witness statement from Maya Forstater based on interviews with serving officers
• Witness statement from retired officer Catherine Larkman of Women’s Rights Network
• Exhibit illustrating that the NPCC policy will foreseeably be used by violent sexual predators and fetishistic cross-dressers.

Why is the case significant?

We are glad that the previous guidance, which permitted men with paperwork stating that they are women to strip-search female detainees, was withdrawn without the need for a hearing. 

But rather than simply accepting the clear reasoning of the Supreme Court judgment of April 2025, that in laws where other people’s rights are strongly engaged any interpretation of “sex” other than the biological one is highly likely to lead to infringements of those rights, the NPCC and BTP have continued trying to find ways to enable cross-sex searching. 

Under this guidance, male police officers are able to carry out strip searches of women with a trans identity. Women in contact with the police will be vulnerable members of society, much more likely to have histories of being in care, domestic or sexual abuse, trauma, mental health issues, and severe alcohol or drug dependence. 

The police have a shocking history of misogyny towards women in their care, as reported in the Casey Review (2023), the Angiolini Inquiry (2024) and the Baird Inquiry (2024). Women with a trans identity will be vulnerable and at risk of being strip searched by male officers. That they have “consented” does not remove the risk of serious harms, as is clear from the recent shocking case of a mentally ill trans-identifying woman who was held in a male psychiatric ward because that aligned with her “gender identity”, only to be raped within an hour. 

Same-sex searching also protects officers (of both sexes) from accusations of sexual assault or wrongdoing. And it protects the dignity of female officers specifically. 

Police attitudes towards women extend to the way female officers are treated. The NPCC’s guidance places female officers under pressure to strip-search male detainees. In a busy custody suite, it will be hard for them to say no. Female officers are in a minority in all police forces, and men make up the great majority of detainees in general, and almost all of those detained for violent or sexual crimes. The guidance hands male detainees who have an erotic interest in cross-dressing, or who get a sexual thrill from exposing themselves in front of women or simply enjoy humiliating and intimidating women, an easy way to do so inside the custody suite.

We are pleased that NPCC and BTP have confirmed as a result of our case that:

• if there is nothing to suggest a detainee identifies as trans, an agreement to an opposite-sex strip search is very likely to be refused
• checks will be undertaken before an opposite-sex strip search is carried out and if the detainee (a) has been arrested for a sexual offence, (b) is found to have a history of such an offence or (c) there are any warning markers to suggest sexual motivation for the search, an opposite-sex strip search would be refused.

However, we are dismayed that they have refused to agree to amend their guidance to make this clear to officers. Further, it is likely that there will be abusive men who request an opposite-sex search who will not be picked up by this screening, and female officers will be exposed to degrading treatment as a result. 

What officers told us about the NPCC policy

• “I can’t understand how people are expected to give true consent while under duress to what essentially amounts to a sexual assault, if not just a physical assault.” 
• “The idea of there being no career detriment is nonsense.”
• “If you are seen as a troublemaker or somebody who won’t toe the line, then you won’t get any further.”
• “There’ll be personal detriment…. If they’ve done it when they really didn’t feel like they should do it, it’ll just eat at them. And if they have said no, they’ll go home and worry about what their supervisor will think of them. What will the person they said no to think of them?”
• “There’s a man in custody who thinks he’s a woman and he wants a woman to search him and you feel pressured. There’s no debate about why you said no. And then you’re open to your colleagues – if you’ve got that kind of a team – saying, ‘She’s a bigot. She wouldn’t search that trans woman.’”
• A detainee might later make a complaint about an opposite-sex search: “The IOPC [Independent Office for Police Conduct] would be within their rights to declare the officer’s actions unlawful, with a potential finding of gross misconduct and extreme impact on the officer’s career.”
• “We are talking about a search under PACE conditions informed by APP [authorised professional practice]: if it’s not a lawful order, it’s an unlawful order.”
• Detainees who require searching, detention or custody are not average members of the public: “They’re far more likely to be violent against our officers, [seek to] humiliate our officers. They dislike police and they will do anything they can to harm us.” 
• The ability to ask for a strip search to be performed by a female officer would be rapidly and widely misused by male detainees for criminal and sexual purposes. “At best it could be a power play; at worst it could be absolutely predatory behavior where he would get off on that.”
• A man directed to manipulate his private parts by a female officer may experience this as arousing and become erect: “Who’s to say he’s not going to turn that into a sexual act? You’re almost inviting him to turn it into a sexual act.”

What are we hoping for? 

If we win, we hope the court will make a declaration that opposite-sex strip searches are unlawful. We hope that the case will force NPCC, BTP and by extension all police forces in Britain to ensure their searching guidance complies with PACE and to abandon any attempt to permit opposite-sex searching. 

This would have a wider impact in prisons and other situations of close contact (such as medical and social care), and more broadly into single-sex services. It would also illustrate that the reasoning of the Supreme Court in FWS has wider application in other laws where sex-based rights are engaged.

Who are our lawyers? 

We are represented by Tim Owen KC of Matrix Chambers and Kate O’Raghallaigh of Doughty Street Chambers, instructed by solicitor Sasha Rozansky at Deighton Pierce Glynn. 

• Tim is a highly regarded specialist in a wide range of practice areas including criminal, public, human-rights and police law. He has been consistently listed by the main legal directories as a leading silk in six or more practice areas, as well as being identified as one of the “stars at the bar” by Chambers and Partners. The legal directories have consistently marked him out as an exceptional advocate who impresses as both a jury and an appellate advocate and who commands huge respect from the Bench at all levels. 
• Kate’s practice encompasses criminal trials and appeals, extradition and public law, in particular cases that involve criminal procedure, constitutional law, the rights of prisoners, migrants, women and children. She has a strong appellate and judicial-review practice and regularly appears in the Court of Appeal, Administrative Court and Privy Council. She has acted in many of the country’s leading criminal appeals in recent years, including the seminal appeals in the Post Office scandal, in which she has represented more than 70 sub-postmasters whose convictions have been quashed. 
• Sasha is a partner at Deighton Pierce Glynn, named by The Times as one of the top three law firms in judicial review and human rights. She specialises in public law and human rights. She is an expert in women’s rights, consultations, procurements, discrimination and equality law. Sasha has conducted many high-profile judicial-review test cases, covering a wide range of subject areas.

What will we use your money for?

The original BTP policy we challenged ended up being withdrawn, and the court granted us some of our costs as a result. We have put that money towards this new legal challenge. Our lawyers are working under a discounted conditional-fee arrangement. This is a risk-sharing mechanism. If we lose we will pay a heavily discounted fee. If we win, the lawyers will be able to charge their full fees and recover costs back from NPCC and BTP. 

This means we are seeking to raise funds to cover the discounted amount and to help cover our costs if we lose and have to pay NPCC and BTP’s costs. If we win and receive costs, we will use that money for other legal challenges.

Donate now