EAST Lancashire peer Baroness Massey has war-ned too many children don’t trust the police because they are treated as ‘small adults’.

The Darwen-born health and education expert, brought up in Lynwood Avenue and former head girl at the town’s grammar school, chaired an 18-month Parliamentary inquiry into the issue.

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It found many young people have a ‘profound lack of trust’ in the police, sometimes bordering on fear.

Her all-party parliamentary group for children warned they were too often treated as ‘small adults’, with their specific needs disregarded.

It said negative experiences, such as arrest and stop and search procedures, bred ‘frustration and anger’.

The report urged changes to training, custody facilities and safeguarding app-roaches.

The committee, led by Baroness Massey of Darwen, said children and young people's first contact with the police was vital in shaping their attitudes towards them. Its report said: “For a significant number of children and young people, this experience is a negative one as a victim or suspected offender.

“Once a negative encounter has occurred, it takes time and hard work to change ingrained attitudes, which are often passed on from one generation to the next.”

Baroness Massey said the welfare and safety of young people must be paramount in the police’s dealings with them.

Former teacher Doreen, ennobled in 1999, said: “It is critical that in every encounter with the police, under-18s are treated as children first.

“Whilst there are exemplary initiatives seeking to improve relat-ionships between young people and the police, these positive approaches are not reflected across the country.”