The practice being used by police to strip search anyone – apart from suspected drug smugglers – is degrading and not becoming of a supposed modern country such as Malta.

The fact that two local councillors (older men at that) were stripped in an investigation over alleged misuse of laptops belonging to the council just cannot be justified, by any stretch of the imagination.

We understand that the laptops were returned without a hard disk, so we ask, where was the need to strip search these older men? They were not accused of jewellery theft and they were not under suspicion of pedaling drugs. So what were they supposed to have done? Did they hide the hard disks where the sun doesn’t shine?

We use this ridiculous example to expose just how ludicrous this practice of strip searching people is. What did they think? That the men were wearing wires? That they had plastic explosives moulded to their bodies?

As we have already said, anything short of suspected drug trafficking, or a proper frisk for weapons, should not warrant a strip search. What century are we living in?

We ask the question again… what could possibly possess the police to strip search two 40-something councillors in connection with allegations of misusing a laptop. It’s sickening, that’s what it is.

And it also makes us wonder how many people have been strip searched for no reason and have kept their mouth shut. The police have admitted (in court time and time again), that short of a confession, they have virtually no means to obtain a conviction unless it is a drug sting or there are witnesses to corroborate stories. And before anyone mentions forensics, don’t even go there. Sherlock Holmes probably had better recourse to forensic equipment than our lot do. The police say it is to avoid people harming themselves while in custody… do we really need to be stripped? We understand that the police have to make sure that their officers are kept safe, as well as ensuring that people do not harm themselves. But… we still shake our heads in disbelief.