Those responsible for Child Q’s racist treatment should be sacked

The clearly racist treatment by Metropolitan Police officers of a black 15-year-old schoolgirl in a Hackney school was truly shocking.

Those officers, and the teaching staff who stood by as the poor girl, known as Child Q, was subjected to the most unspeakably humiliating strip search should be ashamed of themselves. That the girl’s mother was not informed, nor given the opportunity to attend the young girl’s ordeal, makes the police and teachers’ behaviour even more disgraceful.

The fact that the search found absolutely no drugs merely adds to the unforgivable event.

I am glad to see that Hackney Council leaders and London mayor Sadiq Khan are taking up this utterly disgusting case. The Met can hardly withstand yet another significant scandal.

I look forward to confirmation that those responsible will be sacked without delay. The young victim deserves nothing less, and an apology would be adding insult to injury.

Patrick Moore

Norwich

Boris Johnson has been quick to claim credit for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliife, even though his cack-handed comments to a parliamentary committee contributed to the extension of the poor woman’s detention, while Liz Truss has also eagerly seized a photo opportunity.

However, many people have worked towards Nazanin’s release, and the politician who has done most is her MP Tulip Siddiq, who has campaigned tirelessly all these years.

Oh wait – she’s an opposition MP, isn’t she? Must keep quiet about her contribution, then.

Sam Boote

Nottingham

Is there a more balanced, brave and pragmatic man than Richard Ratcliffe? I have no doubt in my mind that he and his family will embark on this journey together, with the supreme tenacity and stoicism they have all shown during these long and torturous six years.

Yes, there will be problems and normal family life will be a struggle after all the trauma and setbacks. But he is correct, getting the basics right, enjoying reassuring family activities and placing their daughter Gabriella at the heart of their long and hopefully wonderful journey back, will see them through to the other side of this ghastly affair.

This indeed will be the start of a beautiful renaissance of their lives together, which was so cruelly interrupted.

Judith A Daniels

Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

What a sad picture it was to see Boris Johnson courting the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in the pursuit of a ready solution to reduce reliance on Russian oil and gas.

Not just sad because of the individuals involved and what they represent, but because it is yet another example of where short-term expediency takes us away from the hard and gruelling task of doing what we know we need to do to wean ourselves off supposedly cheap energy resources, the price of which includes damage to people, to lands, to our climate and to future generations.

As the invasion of Ukraine has surely shown us, once again, that the search for just and sustainable solutions to many problems doesn’t lie in our lazy and short-termist tendency to strike deals that deliver short-term solutions.

The answer isn’t to turn our face from atrocity because over time, each failure to keep focus on the good only encourages those whose focus lies elsewhere. We know tyrants and dictators can strike those deals just as well as we can. We also know that what separates us from them is the drive to find answers that deliver to individuals within the context of common good.

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It’s easy to blame individual politicians when they fail to represent us. We can and do occasionally have a socially responsive moment, as has the desire to house Ukrainian refugees forced the hand of the government.

Let’s not let it rest at that. Through local elections, through the next general election, through continued pressure applied to those who deliver public and private services, the burden is now on us to show that we will no longer accept a binary fight between good and bad, between what suits us now and the right actions aimed at the future.

Let’s force our politicians to realise that we want more than that, and that if they do not deliver, then they need to make way for others who will.

Gary Wiltshire

Scallastle, Isle of Mull

I see that ex-unelected bureaucrat and former whisky salesman, David Frost, who once railed against unelected EU bureaucrats and was vocal in promising less red tape after Brexit is now admitting, although only for touring musicians at present, that his deal actually increased red tape.

If this scenario played out on a third-rate TV sitcom I’d probably be laughing by now.

Robert Boston

Kent