Most strip searches on children in the island happened without an appropriate adult present.

Police figures, released in a Freedom of Information response, show that between 2018 and 2022, 86 strip searches were carried out on juveniles aged 17 and under.

Of those searches, 70% (60) did not have an appropriate adult present to supervise.

In 26 cases, the defendant refused or did not want an appropriate adult in the room.

In all cases that had appropriate adult present, no illegal material was found.

Over 90% of the searches did not result in anything being found on the children.

Out of the 86 searches of children, items were found on only eight occasions in five years, with items such as kitchen knives, class B drugs and a mobile phone being discovered.

In 2020 30 strip searches were carried out on children whilst eight were done in 2019.

The figures for Isle of Man show that an average of 17 children were strip-searched per year between 2018 and 2022.

These figures come after a similar request for information was carried out in the UK, which found that children were being strip-searched as young as eight.

This move came after the Child Q case, in which a 15-year-old girl, known as Child Q, was taken out of an exam and strip-searched whilst on her period after being wrongly accused of carrying cannabis.

The report by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza showed 2,847 children were strip-searched in England and Wales from 2018 to mid-2022. More than half of the searches took place without an appropriate adult.