Home Office figures show North Wales Police (NWP) recorded 686 detentions in custody of children aged 17 and under in the year to March 2024 – up from 597 the year before.

The number of overnight detentions of children also increased from 74 to 174.

The UK ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, agreeing detention in police custody of a child should be used "only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time".

NWP strip searched children five times last year – up from four the year before.

Strip searching does not necessarily imply nudity or exposure of intimate body parts, though it can, and ranges from the removal of a shirt all clothing.