
I was forced to strip naked in police cell and threatened to drop complaints against officers, says mother
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1 year agoon
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adminA 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 Stewart as police told her she is under arrest
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.
More on Greater Manchester
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Dannika being taken away by police
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.
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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.
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2:59
Strip searching: What are your rights?
‘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.

Maggie Oliver
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.
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1:25
Greater Manchester Mayor responds to Sky’s report on strip searches
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.

Dannika was detained
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:
Woman says she was ‘drugged and sexually assaulted’ by GMP
Minister to contact police watchdog
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.
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0:39
‘I don’t have anything to lose’
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.

Dannika says her complaints against Greater Manchester Police led to her being detained and humiliated in a cell
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.”
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3:33
Woman strip searched by police speaks out
‘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.
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UK
Infected blood victims are ‘waiting to die in limbo’ – with hundreds still waiting for compensation
Published
3 hours agoon
July 9, 2025By
admin
Victims of the infected blood scandal say they are “waiting to die in limbo”, with just hundreds having received compensation to date.
For decades, more than 30,000 NHS patients were knowingly given infected blood products, and more than 3,000 people died as a result. Survivors are left living with long-term health complications, including HIV and hepatitis.
An inquiry into the scandal, which published its final report in May 2024, accused the NHS of a “pervasive cover-up”. Recompense payments for the victims and survivors were ordered, with the government setting aside £11.8bn to do this.
Earlier this year, the inquiry was reopened to examine the “timeliness and adequacy” of the compensation, and its report – published today – has accused the scheme of “perpetuating” harm.
Just 2,043 people have been asked to start a claim, 616 have been made offers, and 430 of those have been paid.
“For decades, people who suffered because of infected blood have not been listened to. Once again, decisions have been made behind closed doors, leading to obvious injustices,” says Sir Brian Langstaff, chair of the Infected Blood Inquiry.
“It is not too late to get this right. We are calling for compensation to be faster, and more than that, fairer.”
In his latest 210-page report, Sir Brian says yet more people have been harmed by the way they have been treated by the scheme.
It highlights how the compensation scheme was drafted without any direct involvement from the people most affected – the expert group that advised the government on how financial support should be delivered was not allowed to take evidence or hear from any victim of the infected blood scandal.
“Obvious injustices” within the scheme include the exclusion of anyone infected with HIV prior to 1982 and the unrealistic requirements for proving psychological harm.
How did the infected blood scandal happen?
Between 1970 and the early 1990s, more than 30,000 NHS patients were given blood transfusions, or treatments made using blood products, which were contaminated with hepatitis C or HIV.
The infected blood was used because the NHS was struggling to meet the domestic demand for blood products, so sourced around 50% of them from abroad, including the US.
But much of the blood had been taken from prisoners, drug addicts and other high-risk groups who were paid to give blood.
Blood donations in the UK were not routinely screened for hepatitis C until 1991, 18 months after the virus was first identified.
As a result, more than 3,000 people have died, and survivors have experienced lifelong health implications.
In 2017, the government announced a statutory inquiry into the scandal to examine the impact on families, how authorities responded, and the care and support provided to those affected.
The Infected Blood Inquiry published its findings last year and a multi-billion-pound compensation scheme was announced in its wake.
This included payments for a group of people with the blood clotting disorder haemophilia, who were subjected to “unethical research” while at school and included in secret trials to test blood products.
HIV infections before 1982
The current scheme means any person infected with HIV before 1 January 1982 will not be compensated – something the latest report calls “illogical and unjust”.
The rule “completely misunderstands (or ignores) the central fact that blood products used [before this date] were already known to carry a risk of a dangerous virus – Hepatitis”, the report says.
The rule appears to have been made based on legal advice to the government.
One mother says her daughter was invited to claim compensation, only to be told she was likely “ineligible” because she had been infected prior to 1982.
“To reach this stage of the proceedings to be faced with the unbearable possibility of her claim being declined is yet another nightmare to be somehow endured… This unbearable and intolerable situation is cruel and unjust,” she says in the report.
Read more:
Ten victims of infected blood scandal to receive total of around £13m
Infected blood victims ‘livid’ with ‘paltry’ compensation offer
Trust between citizens and state destroyed in infected blood scandal
One person who is not named in the report said: “It feels as if we are waiting to die in limbo, unable to make any progress in our lives and fearing that as our health declines, we may not ever get the compensation we deserve.”
Analysis by Sky correspondent Laura Bundock: Victims’ painful battle continues – and in some cases time is running out
This is another deeply damning report into the infected blood scandal.
We now know the damage and suffering caused by the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS is far from over.
So many were promised long-overdue compensation. But those infected and affected by the scandal are still being harmed by delays, injustices, and a lack of transparency.
Over a year since his final inquiry report was published the chair, Sir Brian Langstaff, does not hold back in his criticism of the compensation scheme.
He finds the system sluggish, slow and difficult to navigate.
What was set up to help the infected blood community, failed to properly involve victims of the scandal. Opportunities were missed opportunities to consult, and decisions were made behind closed doors.
The end result is an unfair, unfit system leaving people undercompensated. What’s worse, very few have received any money. And in some cases, time is running out.
This additional report makes yet more recommendations. Sir Brian is clear that despite a bad start, it’s not too late to get things right. What he says is an important moment of vindication for the victims, who’d felt their voices were being ignored.
They’ve campaigned and fought for this inquiry for decades. Most assumed the battle was over once Sir Brian’s report was published last year. But despite promises and pledges from politicians, their anger and upset hasn’t gone away.
The government says it’s taking steps to speed up the process. For victims, trust in the authorities remains low.
It will take more than warm words to restore faith, as they continue through the painful struggle for justice.
Unrealistic expectations
The report also highlights the unrealistic evidence requirements for someone proving psychological harm.
The current regulations require a consultant psychiatrist to have diagnosed and treated someone, either as in-patient, or in hospital for six months.
But the report says, at the time the scandal was unfolding, “consultant psychiatric services were not the norm across every part of the country”.
“It would be wrong to set a requirement for compensation that such services be accessed when it was not a practical proposition that they could be.”
Those infected were also unlikely to have told even close friends and family about their diagnosis due to the stigma and ostracism.
Therefore, the expectation of having received medical care “would have involved revealing to an unknown clinician what that person dared not reveal, especially if there was a chance that it might leak out”.
Other exclusions
The report also highlighted other exclusions within the compensation scheme.
It says the “impacts of infection with Hepatitis is not being fully recognised in the scheme as it stands”. The scheme also fails to recognise the devastating impacts of interferon, used to treat Hep C. The vast majority of people who received interferon suffered severely, both psychologically and physically.
The compensation regulations also withdraw support for a bereaved partner if the infected person dies after 31 March this year. The argument being that they are eligible for compensation in their own right as an “affected” person.
But removing these payments immediately after death means infected persons “see themselves as worthless and [ignites] fears of leaving partners destitute”.
One man reports being denied compensation as victims of medical experimentation because – despite having evidence it took place – the hospital where he was infected was not named in the regulations.
Read more:
Infected and experimented on
The report issued a number of recommendations to speed up the process.
It says people should be able to apply for compensation, rather than wait to be asked.
The compensation authority should also progress applications from different groups at the same time, giving priority to those who are most ill and older, or who have never received any form of financial support.
It also says anyone who has evidence of being the victim of medical experiments should be compensated for it, regardless of where they were treated.
The report calls for more transparency and openness, as well as involvement from those infected and affected.
Support groups react to latest report
Kate Burt, Chief Executive of the Haemophilia Society, said the government’s “failure to listen to those at the heart of the contaminated blood scandal has shamefully been exposed by the Infected Blood Inquiry yet again”.
“Now government must take urgent action to put this right by valuing those impacted by this scandal through a fair and fast compensation settlement,” she says. “Only then can the infected blood community move on from the past and finally focus on what remains of their future.”
A lawyer advising some 1,500 victims says some of the recommendations “can and should be implemented immediately”.
Des Collins, senior partner at Collins Solicitors, says: “We also urgently need transparency of the timetable for the affected and an acceleration of the payment schedule to them.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Please refresh the page for the latest version.
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UK
Why do so many from around the world try to cross the English Channel?
Published
9 hours agoon
July 9, 2025By
admin
While the politicians talk, so many people come from around the world to try to get across the Channel on small boats. But why?
Why make such a perilous crossing to try to get to a country that seems to be getting increasingly hostile to asylum seekers?
As the British and French leaders meet, with small boats at the forefront of their agenda, we came to northern France to get some answers.
It is not a new question, but it is peppered with fresh relevance.
Over the course of a morning spent around a migrant camp in Dunkirk, we meet migrants from Gaza, Iraq, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sri Lanka and beyond.
Some are fearful, waving us away; some are happy to talk. Very few are comfortable to be filmed.
All but one man – who says he’s come to the wrong place and actually wants to claim asylum in Paris – are intent on reaching Britain.
They see the calm seas, feel the light winds – perfect conditions for small boat crossings.
John has come here from South Sudan. He tells me he’s now 18 years old. He left his war-torn home nation just before his 16th birthday. He feels that reaching Britain is his destiny.
“England is my dream country,” he says. “It has been my dream since I was at school. It’s the country that colonised us and when I get there, I will feel like I am home.
“In England, they can give me an opportunity to succeed or to do whatever I need to do in my life. I feel like I am an English child, who was born in Africa.”

‘England is my dream country,’ John tells Adam Parsons
He says he would like to make a career in England, either as a journalist or in human resources, and, like many others we meet, is at pains to insist he will work hard.
The boat crossing is waved away as little more than an inconvenience – a trifle compared with the previous hardships of his journey towards Britain.
We meet a group of men who have all travelled from Gaza, intent on starting new lives in Britain and then bringing their families over to join them.
One man, who left Gaza two years ago, tells me that his son has since been shot in the leg “but there is no hospital for him to go to”.
Next to him, a man called Abdullah says he entered Europe through Greece and stayed there for months on end, but was told the Greek authorities would never allow him to bring over his family.
Britain, he thinks, will be more accommodating. “Gaza is being destroyed – we need help,” he says.

Abdullah says ‘Gaza is being destroyed – we need help’
A man from Eritrea tells us he is escaping a failing country and has friends in Britain – he plans to become a bicycle courier in either London or Manchester.
He can’t stay in France, he says, because he doesn’t speak French. The English language is presented as a huge draw for many of the people we talk to, just as it had been during similar conversations over the course of many years.
I ask many of these people why they don’t want to stay in France, or another safe European country.
Some repeat that they cannot speak the language and feel ostracised. Another says that he tried, and failed, to get a residency permit in both France and Belgium.
But this is also, clearly, a flawed survey. Last year, five times as many people sought asylum in France as in Britain.
And French critics have long insisted that Britain, a country without a European-style ID card system, makes itself attractive to migrants who can “disappear”.
Read more:
Channel crossings rise 50% in first six months of 2025
French police forced to watch on as migrants attempt crossing
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1:48
Migrant Channel crossings hit new record
A young man from Iraq, with absolutely perfect English, comes for a chat. He oozes confidence and a certain amount of mischief.
It has taken him only seven days to get from Iraq to Dunkirk; when I ask how he has made the trip so quickly, he shrugs. “Money talks”.
He looks around him. “Let me tell you – all of these people you see around you will be getting to Britain and the first job they get will be in the black market, so they won’t be paying any tax.
“Back in the day in Britain, they used to welcome immigrants very well, but these days I don’t think they want to, because there’s too many of them coming by boat. Every day it’s about seven or 800 people. That’s too many people.”
“But,” I ask, “if those people are a problem – then what makes you different? Aren’t you a problem too?”
He shakes his head emphatically. “I know that I’m a very good guy. And I won’t be a problem. I’ll only stay in Britain for a few years and then I’ll leave again.”

A man from Sri Lanka says he “will feel safe” when he gets to Britain; a tall, smiling man from Ethiopia echoes the sentiment: “We are not safe in our home country so we have come all this way,” he says. “We want to work, to be part of Britain.”
Emmanuel is another from South Sudan – thoughtful and eloquent. He left his country five years ago – “at the start of COVID” – and has not seen his children in all that time. His aim is to start a new life in Britain, and then to bring his family to join him.
He is a trained electrical engineer, but says he could also work as a lorry driver. He is adamant that Britain has a responsibility to the people of its former colony.

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“The British came to my country – colonising, killing, raping,” he said. “And we didn’t complain. We let it happen.
“I am not the problem. I won’t fight anyone; I want to work. And if I break the laws – if any immigrant breaks the laws – then fine, deport them.
“I know it won’t be easy – some people won’t like me, some people will. But England is my dream.”
UK
UK and France have ‘shared responsibility’ to tackle illegal migration, Emmanuel Macron says
Published
14 hours agoon
July 9, 2025By
admin
Emmanuel Macron has said the UK and France have a “shared responsibility” to tackle the “burden” of illegal migration, as he urged co-operation between London and Paris ahead of a crunch summit later this week.
Addressing parliament in the Palace of Westminster on Tuesday, the French president said the UK-France summit would bring “cooperation and tangible results” regarding the small boats crisis in the Channel.
Politics latest: Lord Norman Tebbit dies, aged 94

King Charles III at the State Banquet for President of France Emmanuel Macron. Pic: PA
Mr Macron – who is the first European leader to make a state visit to the UK since Brexit – told the audience that while migrants’ “hope for a better life elsewhere is legitimate”, “we cannot allow our countries’ rules for taking in people to be flouted and criminal networks to cynically exploit the hopes of so many individuals with so little respect for human life”.
“France and the UK have a shared responsibility to address irregular migration with humanity, solidarity and fairness,” he added.
Looking ahead to the UK-France summit on Thursday, he promised the “best ever cooperation” between France and the UK “to fix today what is a burden for our two countries”.
Sir Keir Starmer will hope to reach a deal with his French counterpart on a “one in, one out” migrant returns deal at the key summit on Thursday.
King Charles also addressed the delegations at a state banquet in Windsor Castle on Tuesday evening, saying the summit would “deepen our alliance and broaden our partnerships still further”.

King Charles speaking at state banquet welcoming Macron.
Sitting next to President Macron, the monarch said: “Our armed forces will cooperate even more closely across the world, including to support Ukraine as we join together in leading a coalition of the willing in defence of liberty and freedom from oppression. In other words, in defence of our shared values.”
In April, British officials confirmed a pilot scheme was being considered to deport migrants who cross the English Channel in exchange for the UK accepting asylum seekers in France with legitimate claims.
The two countries have engaged in talks about a one-for-one swap, enabling undocumented asylum seekers who have reached the UK by small boat to be returned to France.
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Britain would then receive migrants from France who would have a right to be in the UK, like those who already have family settled here.
The small boats crisis is a pressing issue for the prime minister, given that more than 20,000 migrants crossed the English Channel to the UK in the first six months of this year – a rise of almost 50% on the number crossing in 2024.

President Macron greets Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle at his address to parliament in Westminster.
Elsewhere in his speech, the French president addressed Brexit, and said the UK could not “stay on the sidelines” despite its departure from the European Union.
He said European countries had to break away from economic dependence on the US and China.
Read more:
French police forced to watch on as migrants attempt crossing
Public finances in ‘relatively vulnerable position’, OBR warns
“Our two countries are among the oldest sovereign nations in Europe, and sovereignty means a lot to both of us, and everything I referred to was about sovereignty, deciding for ourselves, choosing our technologies, our economy, deciding our diplomacy, and deciding the content we want to share and the ideas we want to share, and the controversies we want to share.
“Even though it is not part of the European Union, the United Kingdom cannot stay on the sidelines because defence and security, competitiveness, democracy – the very core of our identity – are connected across Europe as a continent.”
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