Unconscious along with her fingers cuffed behind her again, a lady is carried right into a police cell.
She is pressured face-down onto a skinny mattress. Police officers take off her denims, minimize off her knickers, pull a pair of outsized custody shorts over her legs, then take away her prime and bra earlier than leaving her alone and topless. All of that is captured on CCTV.
The girl within the footage is Zayna Iman, 38, who alleges that she was drugged and sexually assaulted whereas being held in custody by Greater Manchester Police.
“Instead of providing an unconscious female with medical attention they thought, ‘I know let’s take her clothes off instead and leave her there’,” says Zayna, sounding incredulous. “It’s just something that the police do for their own perverse kicks.”
Police broke into her house within the early hours of 5 February 2021, and arrested her after she knocked the glasses off a feminine officer’s face. They have been following up a welfare callout over a lady excessive on cocaine. Over the following 40 hours or so, Zayna – who has waived her proper to anonymity – could be taken to and held at a police station.
From that interval, there are three hours of lacking footage which GMP have to date failed to produce.
Zayna’s allegation is supported by her medical data which present proof of sexual accidents. She has additionally shared her issues with former GMP chief superintendent, Martin Harding, who has seen the accessible footage and the obtrusive inconsistencies with the custody log, and says her claims are credible.
“I believe she was raped. I believe she was raped by an officer and I believe the organisation is covering it up,” he says.
GMP has not defined why the footage is lacking however says there’s at present no proof to recommend any staff have misconducted themselves or dedicated a legal offence.
Zayna’s reminiscence is available in flashbacks, which is why she requested for footage of her detention, together with custody logs, utilizing a topic entry request – which may be made to acquire private data held by an organisation.
Sky News producer, Liz Lane, has examined the police logs and greater than 40 hours of the movies.
First important hole in footage
Our investigation discovered three important gaps for which GMP failed to offer footage, the primary coming shortly after Zayna was arrested at 1.53am, in response to police paperwork.
A police body-worn digicam captures Zayna, sporting a white prime and denims, her fingers cuffed, as she is bundled into the again of a police van at 1.59am, the place she says she handed out.
The journey to the police station ought to have taken simply 10 minutes however Zayna is not seen once more for nearly one other hour and a half, when she is carried into the cell, apparently unconscious at 3.26am. She cannot keep in mind the journey and there’s no bodycam footage contained in the van. Separately obtained CCTV footage exhibits an officer getting in by a facet door.
When she does reappear, Zayna is carried by three feminine cops. A male officer walks in and stands near the door of her cell earlier than disappearing. A fourth feminine officer helps in what Zayna describes as a strip search, though police recommend her garments have been eliminated and changed with anti-rip clothes over welfare issues.
Harding says he can see “no justification at all” for the alleged strip search and there’s nothing on the custody document to clarify the grounds or that it was carried out in any respect.
“She’s left face down, when they suspect she might have had a drugs overdose so where is the duty of care?” Harding says.
Just after 5am, mendacity on a blue mat and lined by a blanket, Zayna finds she has been left a prime to put on. She sits along with her fingers to her head at 5.34am, when the police log says she underwent a medical examination. No one is seen getting into the cell on the CCTV footage and he or she doesn’t transfer from the spot all the hour.
Second hole
The subsequent hole within the footage comes after Zayna is seen sitting on a bench with a blanket pulled up over her knees with a drink by her facet. At 9.49am, she turns into agitated, and throws the cup throughout the room earlier than wanting as much as the digicam in a state of misery, her fingers pressed to her face.
Worryingly, when she subsequent seems at 11am, Zayna is topless and clearly agitated, hitting her head along with her fingers and gesturing along with her arms. She is behaving unusually, in a sexual method, as she runs her proper hand by her lengthy darkish hair.
Zayna stays in a state of undress for the following 26 hours. The log says 9 instances that she shouldn’t be match to be detained but there she stays. At one level she stands on the bench, a blanket draped round her shoulders, pointing to what seems to be blood on the floor between her ft.
Third hole
The third lacking a part of the story comes after Zayna, now utterly bare, seems to be instantly on the digicam instantly earlier than it cuts out once more at 1pm the following day. An hour later, nonetheless bare, she is speaking as much as the digicam and pointing on the cell door.
She is lastly given a tracksuit to placed on at 8.14pm earlier than leaving the cell a couple of minutes later.
After her launch, Zayna went straight to hospital. Her medical report states: “Miss Iman does not have any prior history of mental disorder, she has been admitted with an acute psychotic episode which has resolved without treatment. It is highly likely that this is drug related to ‘the date rape drug’ which led to a sexual assault.” Medical data additionally point out sexual accidents.
“I remember being placed in a transportation vehicle and I just felt a sense of relief, like I’m safe now,” she says, her voice filled with emotion.
“I remember talking to people through a glass window and trying to explain what happened and I’m pointing here, here – places where it hurt,” she pauses, tears beginning to run down her cheeks.
The Manchester mayor’s workplace has advised Zayna that GMP have all of the footage from the police cell.
Zayna is calm and measured now as she asks: “Why would you withhold footage? The very footage that could either prove or disprove my allegations you will not part with.
“Who’s acquired one thing to cover? I’m overtly saying that sooner or later throughout my detention with Greater Manchester Police I used to be drugged and sexually assaulted, show me incorrect – give me the footage.”
Zayna is not the only woman to complain about her treatment at the same police station.
Kirsty (not her real name) believes officers were heavy-handed with her because she made complaints against the force for failing to investigate allegations of sexual abuse against her sister.
Police ‘on a power trip’
Accused of blackmail by the alleged abuser, Kirsty says she was strip searched and believes it was all about “energy”. “It was police on an influence journey … to close me up, make me scared, to indicate we’re boss, not you,” she says. Police say her clothes were removed for welfare reasons.
In May 2023, Maria (not her real name) says she was strip-searched when she was arrested for malicious communications – accused of swearing at police during a call – after her partner had been held on suspicion of domestic violence against her and she went to the station to pick up her keys.
‘Treated like a piece of meat’
GMP say they thought she may be concealing a vape.
To authorise strip searches, police must have reasonable grounds to suspect someone is concealing something such as drugs, a weapon or crucial evidence like a mobile phone or SIM card.
But Maria says: “The solely motive they did what they did was to degrade me… If I used to be a person, I do not assume they’d’ve performed it. I used to be handled like a bit of meat.”
A spokesperson for GMP said: “Greater Manchester Police is dedicated to delivering excellent service to all these the pressure is available in to contact with. If service is confirmed to have fallen beneath an appropriate degree, the pressure apologises and takes the mandatory motion.
“GMP is aware that these three individuals are unhappy with the service they received when they were arrested and detained – their complaints have or are being investigated by the force. Though one investigation is ongoing, there is currently no evidence to suggest any GMP employees have misconducted themselves or committed a criminal offence.
“Under the definition throughout the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, two of those people weren’t strip searched. Due to issues for his or her welfare, their clothes was eliminated and changed with anti-rip clothes – this course of is topic to completely different laws and steerage.”
Police haven’t defined the lacking footage.
According to the Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) code of apply, something greater than being requested to take away outer layers of clothes is classed as a strip search. GMP has been unable to inform us which completely different laws they’re referring to of their assertion.
Call it a strip search or not, every of those three girls say it was invasive and unjustified and need extra accountability over how these items occur.
Additional reporting by Liz Lane, specialist producer, and Henry Vaughan, house affairs reporter.
Source: information.sky.com”