Judicial review of police search policy is waiting for the Supreme Court judgment

Sex matters in many different laws and policies, not just in the Equality Act. 

The British Transport Police allows male police officers with gender-recognition certificates (GRCs) to search – including strip-search – female detainees. BTP says that this is allowed by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) and is what the law requires.

We think this policy is unlawful and a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects against torture, humiliating and degrading treatment. 

The human rights of women and girls being searched by police officers cannot be overridden because a male officer gains a £5 certificate. Female officers should not be forced to intimately search men who say they are women or non-binary (with or without certificates). 

BTP has admitted that a strip-search of a woman by a male officer is capable of amounting to a breach of her human rights under Article 3, but has so far refused to withdraw its policy, saying that it is “consistent with the current legislation”:

“A male who is issued with a GRC stating that they are a female is to be considered a female. Any female searched by that officer is, for the purposes of PACE and UK legislation, being searched by a female officer.”

We started this case in November 2024. In February 2025 the High Court ordered that our application for permission to bring judicial review be “stayed” until 14 days after the Supreme Court hands down judgment in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers (UKSC/2024/0042). 

But it recognised that this delay could put women at risk. BTP said it does not currently have any officers with GRCs. So the court ordered BTP to immediately notify us and the court in writing if that situation changes. In March we wrote to Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), to inform the council of this order. 

The NPCC’s ongoing review of its own search guidance is being undertaken with legal advice from Robin Moira White, who has referred to Sex Matters as a “hate group” and to the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the previous Women and Equalities Minister as “evil”. The new draft guidance that emerged from this process is similar to BTP’s. 

We suggested that the NPCC should hold off from considering whether to adopt this policy until the BTP judicial review has been determined, which will be after the For Women Scotland judgment. 

The NPCC policy was due to be discussed by chief constables in March. That discussion appears to have been delayed.