The traumatic experience of Child Q is unquestionably heart wrenching, bringing about visceral pain, and justifiable anger across the Hackney community as a whole.

This is a girl who was dehumanised and adultified, her race playing a part in how she was both perceived and treated.

The impact on her is unimaginable, but we know that what she experienced will leave an indelible mark, a mark which she will carry for the rest of her life.

Over the past few days, we have witnessed an outpouring of love for Child Q and alongside many, many others I joined at protests outside Stoke Newington Police Station and the town hall.

Attendees were unified in their horror of the fact that the "smell of cannabis" resulted in the violation of Child Q, both mentally and physically.

Like everyone else I was increasingly incensed as I read through the Serious Case Review, fearful of what the next page would reveal.

Learning of the details of what she was subject to in their entirety left me cold.

The abject failures of school staff and police officers found her subject to systems and processes which in their enactment were both racist and misogynistic, with safeguarding playing absolutely no role in what Child Q was subjected to.

Her experience is sadly not one that can be viewed in isolation, rather it is emblematic of the experiences of so many Black children and young people.

We know that during 2020/21 in the command unit of the Met covering Hackney, 25 children under the age of 18 were strip searched, only two of which were white.

It isn’t such a leap of faith to therefore conclude that the actions of the officers involved in this case were considered accepted practice.

Over the past few years alone, disproportionate sanctioning of Black children in our secondary schools has been brought to fore via Hackney’s Children’s and Young People’s Scrutiny Commission.

The over policing of Black people, and particularly young people, was spotlighted by the Living in Hackney Commission as recently as 2021, with youth led organisation Hackney Account consistently calling this out.

The time for platitudes is over. We need systemic change, and this is why I was a signatory to a letter calling for Hackney's police borough commander’s resignation.