“I was in the cell naked for eight hours,” says Mark Dove, as he recounts his time in custody with Greater Manchester Police – when he was detained for an offence for which he was never charged.
“I had to keep warm with the hot water tap from the cell,” he tells Sky News.
Mark says he could hear police officers laughing.
When he asked for a blanket to keep warm, he says he was told he could have one when he behaved.
Mark raised his arms. “I don’t know what they mean by misbehaving,” he says. “What can you do in a cell for eight hours naked?”
Mark believes he was strip-searched because he called an officer racist and refused to answer his questions, after feeling he had been wrongly arrested.
He is one of several cases which has been reviewed in detail by an inquiry into the treatment of people in Greater Manchester Police’s (GMP) custody, which is due to be published on Thursday.
An independent inquiry – conducted by Dame Vera Baird, the former victims’ commissioner – was launched following a Sky News investigation into how women were being inappropriately strip-searched by officers. It was expanded to also examine the experiences of some men.
The findings are expected to make sober reading for GMP, recounting stories of sexual abuse and domestic violence victims who were arrested for minor misdemeanours, and their treatment at the hands of police officers behind cell doors.
Four women involved in the review have already spoken to Sky News, but Mark is the first man to do so.
He believes he has been persecuted by the police.
Mark tells us he was unnecessarily strip-searched three times, and unlawfully arrested – once at his home in the early hours when police smashed his door with a battering ram in front of his girlfriend and young daughter.
Images filmed on his doorbell camera show officers refusing to tell him why they’ve come to his house at 5.40am unless he comes to the door.
When he refuses they begin smashing it.
Left naked for eight hours – Mark’s first strip search
His story began 18 months earlier when, in July 2022, he was arrested following a family dispute.
Bodycam police video he obtained later showed the officer telling him he was being arrested for “threats to cause criminal damage”.
But when he heard someone shouting threats to kill him, he asked why that person wasn’t being arrested.
The officer replied: “I told him to wind his neck in. Has he threatened you directly?
“He has threatened the police van as far as I’m concerned.
“Shut your mouth and listen to me.”
Mark, who was the only black person on the scene, accused the officer of being racist.
At the police station, Mark asked to file a complaint but the officer behind the desk claimed to not know how he could go about it.
Mark refused to answer the arresting officer’s questions. He explains: “He then starts walking away and tells me I’m doing his f*****g head in.
“The next thing I got taken to a cell where I got strip-searched.”
Initially, he was put in anti-rip garments – but then he says police told him he’d ripped them, so they took them off him.
Mark says: “They take everything out of the cell, absolutely everything and just leave me there naked for eight hours.
“It was freezing in the cell. So, I was asking them for blankets. They wouldn’t give me any.
“So, I had to use the tap, which runs hot water, to basically just keep myself warm.
“It was humiliating. Degrading. Because every time I pressed the button to ask them something, you can hear them just laughing through the mics. I was told when I behave, I can have a blanket.”
Mark became part of the Baird Inquiry after seeing Sky News’ original report about questionable police strip searches on YouTube.
At this stage, he’d been strip-searched twice.
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‘The police were laughing at me’ – Mark’s second strip search
The second time, he was arrested over similar allegations by a relative in February 2023.
A GMP tactical aid unit, which usually consists of eight people, came into Mark’s small front garden and arrested him for threatening behaviour.
The group of officers had no further details, and said they turned up because they had “a bit of downtime” and “a piece of paper with your name on it”.
When he got to the police station, he was stripped but this time refused to get into the anti-rip clothes.
He says he was protesting over the lack of food and their refusal to give him the anti-anxiety medication he took every morning.
While he was still naked a female officer came to his cell and led him through the custody suite naked to go for an interview.
Sky News has seen footage of him being led down the corridor.
Mark remembers as they got near the booking desk, he saw a group of people in suits who he assumed were solicitors.
“I was humiliated,” he says. “There were even prisoners sat on the benches while I’m stark… absolutely naked – no sock on, nothing.
“The staff were laughing at me, the sergeants on the booking desk, so I shouted at them to stop laughing.”
Shortly afterwards, Mark was returned to his cell, without being interviewed.
He was later released without charge.
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Dragged out his house at dawn – Mark’s third strip search
The dawn arrest, where his front door was smashed in, happened a few months later in November 2023.
Mark was dragged out of his house, while his partner and daughter screamed, and he was bundled into the bin area where police cuffed him.
When Mark’s girlfriend of 20 years asked: “What’s he done?” The officer said: “None of your business.”
At no point was anyone told why he was being forcefully removed from his house in the early hours of the morning.
It would later emerge that a text Mark allegedly sent to a relative had been described as malicious communications – but it would again lead to no charges.
Again, Mark was strip-searched.
The Baird Inquiry will examine whether they were justified in smashing his door in and arresting him in front of his partner and daughter.
And why on three arrests he was stripped naked – then later released without charge.
It will look at whether police are abusing their powers and if there are wider problems in the behaviour and attitudes of officers.
While Mark and many others in the inquiry have complained about police behaviour, the inquiry will explore why there never seems to be a satisfactory outcome that holds officers to account for their actions.
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‘Poor standards fall well below what public expects’
Greater Manchester Police said: “We have been fully engaged with Dame Vera’s inquiry since it was commissioned by the mayor last year following the serious issues raised about the treatment of people in our custody.
“We know there are examples in the report which reflect poor standards and practices that fall well below what the public expects of us.
“We await the publication of Dame Vera’s report where we will respond in full to her findings and implement any recommendations.
“An investigation into Mr Dove’s allegations by our Professional Standards Directorate is ongoing.”
A press conference will be held at 11.30am on Thursday when the inquiry’s findings are published, with Mayor Andy Burnham, inquiry author Dame Vera Baird and GMP Chief Constable Stephen Watson.
