I was forced to strip naked in police cell and threatened to drop complaints, says mother

A mother says she was forced to strip naked in a police cell and threatened by officers to drop complaints she had made against them.

Dannika Stewart says her complaints against Greater Manchester Police (GMP) led to her being detained and humiliated in a cell, and was told “You need to drop all your complaints against the police”.

She told Sky News: “I feel they’ll just be after me now. They will always be after me. I’m scared of what they will do next.”

Former GMP detective Maggie Oliver says she believes Dannika is among several complainants “targeted” for “standing up to the police”.

Dannika is a subject of an inquiry by Dame Vera Baird, triggered last year after an investigation by Sky News into police strip searches and the treatment of women in custody.

The review is due to be published soon and will criticise the police complaints system, Sky News understands.

Dannika agreed to tell Sky News her story ahead of the Baird review’s publication.

In March 2022, she reported an alleged sexual crime committed against a young person. She felt it wasn’t being properly investigated so she complained to the police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).

In one complaint she told them she had a recording on her phone of a police officer admitting failures.

Three months later she was told police wanted to speak to her, so she went to Pendleton police station in Greater Manchester. Here she was arrested.

Apparently, the man she’d accused of a sex crime had accused her of blackmail. Inside a police cell she says she was told to strip naked, and if she didn’t it would be done to her.

She believes the police were looking to recover her recording of the officer from the SIM on her phone.

She had handed the phone in without its SIM after her arrest.

‘They needed to show me who was boss’

She said: “So I took my tracksuit bottoms off, which I knew they were going to take away from me anyway. I took my leggings off and then took my knickers off and I’m just sat there naked.”

She said she was left naked while officers walked in and out of the cell with one female officer staring at her breasts.

“It’s all about power,” she said. “Because when I left the police station that day the sergeant on the desk said, ‘you need to drop all your complaints against the police’.”

She added: “They needed to show me who was boss. They needed to control what I was doing.”

Ms Oliver, who resigned from GMP over a decade ago after blowing the whistle on police failures, is supporting Dannika through the Maggie Oliver Foundation.

She told Sky News: “Dannika became a target of that police force. She was seen as a threat to Greater Manchester Police.

“And what they did, they decided they were going to lock her up. I believe that was so they could seize a phone that she had disclosed to the IOPC she had evidence on of her mistreatment.”

She added: “Just like in the Post Office, it is about concealing what is going on. It is trying to protect the reputation of an organisation that is a very powerful public body.”

In October 2022, Dannika filed another complaint to the IOPC, this time about the strip search.

Like her previous complaints, this was passed on to an internal police investigation team within GMP’s professional standards department.

Their report stated: “A strip search was not conducted nor requested. I understand you removed the phone upon request in custody and then removed your outer clothing so you could change into alternative clothing that GMP supplied due to there being a cord in your bottoms.”

Dannika says CCTV would show she didn’t change into GMP clothing and audio from the custody suite would capture her being told to strip naked for a search.

However, despite exercising her right to ask for the footage from the custody suite, the police did not provide it.

After her complaint was dismissed, she decided to approach the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to review how the complaint had been handled.

Deputy mayor for safer and stronger communities, Kate Green, conducted the review and found that the investigating officer “did not review the CCTV footage from Ms Stewart’s time in custody or provide her with an explanation as to why he did not review the CCTV footage or the audio recordings”.

The investigator seemed to have inquired with officers what happened and accepted their version of events, leading to Ms Green’s conclusion that Dannika’s complaint should be upheld.

After another request for the CCTV, Dannika was told that the footage had been corrupted.

Read more:
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Over this time Dannika was kept on bail for 13 months over the blackmail allegations, remaining under the threat of prosecution and jail.

She worried about losing her son, and discovered officers had complained about her to social services saying she was being “obstructive” to the initial investigation that she had instigated by reporting the alleged sex crime.

The IOPC reviewed information contained in children’s services documentation and confirmed that the word “obstructive” was used on a child and family assessment and in a child protection plan.

A note within the plan reads “The police have described Dannika as obstructive”.

The IOPC found no explanation for this and has recently ordered an investigation into this, along with eight other complaints made by Dannika, about the way her allegations were dealt with by the police.

‘We need a truly independent complaints system’

Ms Oliver added: “Many of the victims that I speak to fear that they will lose their child or children and I know that that is a tool that is used. And we need to make sure we have a complaints system that is truly independent.”

Dannika says the problem is that complaints through the independent watchdog website, firstly go directly to the professional standards teams within the local force.

She told Sky News: “If there was a robust and fit-for purpose complaints system, the police wouldn’t have known about the complaints I was placing.

“With the evidence I had, the complaints were of such a serious nature that should have been investigated by an independent body.”

As an example of this, one of her initial complaints about the failed investigation went directly to the officer she was complaining about, who then called her up about the complaint.

Dannika also complained about this in an email to GMP, saying, “How can she investigate her own conduct. I don’t understand. Is this allowed?” 

In response GMP said the complaint “was originally to be service recovered and this is usually done in the format that the officer contacts the complainant to try and discuss the complaint and resolve, however in this case this hasn’t worked and your complaint is now under review by the district”.

Dannika says she was never contacted by “the district.”

‘Where we are not successful, we admit our failings’

A GMP spokesperson told Sky News: “Greater Manchester Police activity is driven by just three things: to fight, prevent and reduce crime, keep people safe and care for victims. Where we are not successful, we admit our failings and we work transparently within governance and regulatory arrangements to redress what has gone wrong.

“Miss Stewart’s complaints continue to be reviewed by Dame Vera Baird and the Professional Standards Directorate. Until these reviews have concluded and reported their findings to Miss Stewart, it wouldn’t be right for the force to comment publicly.

“Miss Stewart has been provided with information relating to some of the allegations within her complaints but if she would like additional updates on the progression of others then she is welcome to contact the Professional Standards Directorate.”

The IOPC issued a statement to Sky News saying: “The vast majority of complaints are dealt with by forces and are only referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct if they meet criteria set out in law.

“The new complaints system has simplified the process to make a complaint, making it more accessible to members of the public who are dissatisfied with the service they receive from a police force.

“In many cases, if a complainant is dissatisfied with the outcome, they will have the right to have the force’s handling of the matter reviewed. In the most serious cases, this will be done with by the IOPC and ensures independent oversight of the system.”

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The blackmail charges against Dannika were recently dropped. She says she has never been provided with evidence of what exactly the blackmail charges entailed.

Some parts of the body-worn camera during her arrest, and her police interview have been given to Dame Vera as part of her inquiry into the treatment of women in custody, but not the CCTV from the custody suite.

Dame Vera is due to report within the next two months.