Transgender suspects CAN ask to be strip-searched by an officer of a different sex, High Court rules

Transgender suspects will still be able to request to be strip-searched by female officers after the High Court threw out a bid to overturn controversial police guidance. The charity Sex Matters brought legal action over interim guidance published last year by the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) and the British Transport Police (BTP) allowing cross-sex searches.Women's rights campaigners argued the advice put female officers under pressure to search detainees who are biological men but identify as women. But in a judgment on Friday, Mr Justice Linden dismissed the challenge.He ruled police officers can lawfully strip-search people of a different sex, as long as both sides consent, and that the NPCC and BTP had acted lawfully in issuing the advice to officers.The strip-search guidance was amended in 2025 following the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex to prevent biological male officers from conducting intimate searches of women.However the NPCC body – which produces guidance for all police forces – said it would still allow biological male suspects who identify as women to request to be strip-searched by a female officer. Strip-search guidance was amended following the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex to prevent biological male officers from conducting intimate searches of women (file photo) Helen Joyce (left) and Maya Forstater from 'Sex Matters' are pictured outside the Supreme Court following the ruling last year The NPCC and BTP defended the claim, saying that both the officer and the person being searched would need to provide consent.In his judgment, Mr Justice Linden said: 'Provided the consent is genuine and the search is lawful in all other respects, I do not consider that the public interest requires that the law should refuse to recognise the consent of a person to a strip search which is in accordance with their preference to be searched by a person of a different sex.'The High Court judge later said that the need for consent will 'mitigate the distress which the detained transgender person may feel, rather than to increase it' and that the guidance is clear 'that it is a matter for the individual officer as to whether they are willing to undertake a search of a person of a different sex and that they may withdraw their consent at any time'.The dispute centred around the interpretation of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), part of which says that officers should only strip-search people of the same sex.Tim Owen KC, for Sex Matters, said in written submissions for a hearing in June that the guidance breaches this law, which 'enacted a same-sex guarantee which amounts to a statutory duty and which cannot be breached through the police unilaterally creating a consensual regime in contradiction to it'.He said the NPCC and BTP 'failed to properly consider the impact on female police officers and female detainees in participating in a 'consensual' opposite-sex strip searching regime'.However, Fiona Barton KC, for the NPCC and BTP, said in written submissions: 'Even with every precaution taken, being strip searched or intimately searched has the potential to be demeaning, embarrassing and distressing.'The risk of that is obviously potentially heightened for a person who identifies as one gender being searched by a person of a different gender, even if they are the same biological sex.'She highlighted a scenario whereby a male officer may inspect a trans woman with surgically constructed female genitalia or vice versa.The guidance was designed to get around these 'particularly acute issues,' Ms Barton added, by 'permitting cross-sex strip searching where both the detained person and the officer freely and fully consent to that process'.In the 24-page ruling, Mr Justice Linden said that the law under Pace does not 'extinguish the possibility of a strip search being carried out on terms as to the sex of the police officer which are otherwise lawfully agreed between the officer and the person to be searched'.The judge also said that parts of the NPCC guidance 'tend to indicate that the risk of pressure on female officers to carry out strip searches on persons of a different sex is not as high as suggested in the claimant's evidence'.He added: 'The guidance and the procedure for agreeing such a search protect them from such pressure, and the reality is that if there are difficulties, or there is pressure of time, an officer of the same sex will carry out the search.'Sex Matters chief executive Maya Forstater said the charity was 'extremely disappointed' by the ruling and would be making a bid to bring an appeal.She continued: 'Our case seeks to protect the rule of law.'If Parliament had wanted to allow people in custody to request to be strip-searched by an officer of the opposite sex, it would have written this into the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, which governs the way searches are carried out. 'It didn't, and it is not for the NPCC or individual police forces to seek to subvert the law by creating a shadow searching regime.'