“Strip-searching is an absolutely horrific experience,” said election candidate Margaret Trotter.

She is standing for TUSC – the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition – in Victoria, and said she was strip-searched about a decade ago by police in Islington.

Trotter, an accountant, believes it is because she questioned police who were doing an operation in the market, and it is not clear what they were looking for during the search. She was never arrested or charged with anything.

“It degraded me,” she said, adding that “the complaints procedure does not work”.

She shared her experience because of the Child Q scandal – the strip-searching by police of a Black teenager at her Hackney school.

“This is nothing new and we know searches have been happening regularly,” Trotter said. “There needs to be an overhaul of the police.”

She said it was important for councillors to be involved with the police and community to improve things.

She is inspired as a candidate to tackle economic hardships people are facing and the demand for quality genuinely affordable homes.

She said: “In Victoria ward, where I am standing, 70 per cent of households pay rent that is set to rise, and housing is unaffordable for the majority.

“We would freeze rents and work towards more genuinely affordable housing solutions.”

She added: “If elected, we will oppose cuts to jobs and services.”
TUSC also wants to see a mass building programme of eco-friendly, affordable council homes to tackle the housing crisis and the climate emergency.

It is opposed to “council tax, rent and service charge increases for working class people to make up for cuts in central funding”.

Trotter is one of seven TUSC candidates standing in Hackney in the Cazenove, Hackney Downs, Hoxton East and Shoreditch, Hoxton West and Stoke Newington wards.

TUSC is holding a public meeting on Wednesday, May 4 at CLR James Library in Dalston Square at 7.30pm to give people a chance to hear about candidates’ plans and policies.

The full list of candidates standing in Victoria is as follows:

Jamie Barber, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition; Helen Baxter, Liberal Democrat; Rolf Dekker, Green; Monika Hoppe-Krajewska, Conservative; Clare Joseph, Labour; Sandra McLeod, Green; Wendy Robinson, Green; Leijla Softic, Conservative; Margaret Trotter, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition; Claudia Turbet-Delof, Labour; Penny Wrout, Labour.