Despite several major forces banning them, investigation shows restraint device used more than 500 times in recent months

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Provincial police forces are under pressure to stop hooding detainees after it emerged that the practice has been used hundreds of times despite being banned by Britain’s biggest police forces.

Official figures obtained by the Guardian show that spit hoods have been used 513 times since last year by a handful of provincial police forces.

The practice of placing a tightly meshed hood over a suspect’s head has been criticised as breaching human rights law and investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission in at least two high-profile cases this year.

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Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that eight rural forces continue to use the practice – including on children as young as 13 – despite it not being sanctioned by police chiefs at the biggest forces, including the Metropolitan police, West Midlands police and Greater Manchester police.

A 13-year-old schoolboy and a 14-year-old schoolgirl were among detainees hooded by police officers in Northamptonshire last year, the figures show, while a 70-year-old man was placed in a spit hood by North Wales police.

The solicitor of a disabled 11-year-old girl who was hooded, handcuffed and detained by Sussex police officers said the practice arguably breached the UK’s domestic and international legal obligations, “particularly in the case of children, those suffering from mental ill health and the disabled”.

Gus Silverman, a solicitor at the law firm Irwin Mitchell, said: “The fact that large police forces such as Greater Manchester and West Midlands have decided there are better ways of managing vulnerable individuals should cause serious questions to be asked of those forces who continue to use spit hoods.”

The girl, known as Child H, was twice placed in a spit hood while being detained by officers for minor offences.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which strongly criticised Sussex police’s handling of the case, refused to condemn its use of the spit hood in that case because it complied with the force’s policy that any spitting would always justify it.

Child H’s mother said: “It is appalling that some police forces consider it appropriate to hood children, when other forces don’t allow their officers to use these devices at all.

“If some forces can keep the public and officers safe without using spit hoods then why can’t all police forces? I have been calling on Sussex police to stop using spit hoods on children after my daughter was hooded in Sussex, but there isn’t any excuse for children to be hooded anywhere in the country. It was a truly horrible experience for my daughter to be hooded and no child should be treated that way.”

There is no national police policy on the use of spit hoods. Chief constables at each of the 43 police forces in England and Wales decide whether to sanction the use of force, often used alongside handcuffs and other forms of restraint.

The practice is not used by 20 of the 35 forces that responded to the Guardian’s Freedom of Information (FoI) request. Only nine forces said they used spit hoods. They include police in Northamptonshire, north Wales, Cheshire, West Mercia, Bedfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Hertfordshire.

These provincial forces have used spit hoods a total of 231 times so far this year, compared to 282 times last year, according to the FoI figures.

Of the 119 people spit-hooded by Hertfordshire police, 15% were black, mixed race or Asian, the figures show. In Bedfordshire, 13.7% of the 51 people spit-hooded were non-white. That figure dropped to 10.3% of the 202 in Northamptonshire and 6.7% of the 89 in Norfolk.

Essex police said spit hoods had not been authorised for use by its senior officers and that it provided safety glasses for officers’ protection.

British Transport police have hooded detainees in 151 cases since June 2014, when the force authorised the practice.

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The force is under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission after it used a spit hood on a young black man who was pinned to the floor by four officers at London Bridge station in July.

Footage filmed by witnesses showed officers holding IK Aihie, 20, to the floor with his hands behind his back and a spit hood over his head. His girlfriend, Jessica McConkey, can be seen in distress in the clip while others plead with the officers: “What the hell are you doing?” and “Stop that.”

IPCC investigators met Aihie this month to confirm they had launched an investigation into his arrest on 21 July. Aihie said: “I hope there will now be a thorough investigation and I would ask any witnesses to my arrest to please contact the IPCC.”

Aihie’s solicitor Shamik Dutta, of the law firm Bhatt Murphy, said: “It is imperative that all relevant evidence in this case is preserved without delay to ensure a robust inquiry into the officers’ conduct.”