Victims Of “Unlawful” Police Strip Searches At Festivals File Historic Class Action Lawsuit
“I could not stop crying. I was completely humiliated.”
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=351187810550698
A lawsuit representing the alleged victims of police strip searches at music festivals has officially been filed against the New South Wales Police.
The class action suit alleges that festival attendees were victims of assault, battery and false imprisonment by NSW police officers after being subjected to searches that lawyers claim saw people under the age of eighteen searched without a guardian present or in some cases with inadequate privacy.
The lead plaintiff in the class action suit, Raya Meredith, says she was left traumatised after a police strip search in 2018 at Splendour In The Grass, which was initiated after a police officer informed her that a sniffer dog has detected drugs on her person.
In an invasive search that lasted half an hour, Meredith alleges she was forced to lift her breasts after stripping naked and was directed to show her genitals to an officer to “prove that the only item inserted in her body was a tampon”. During the search — in which officers ultimately found no drugs — Meredith claims an officer also entered the room while she was naked from the waist down, further violating her privacy.
Seven children were strip-searched by members of NSW Police at Splendour in the Grass music festival last year. Only one had a support person available during the search, despite this being a legal requirement. #stripsearch #NSWTimeForChangehttps://t.co/LUwc6O10Y5
— Redfern Legal Centre (@RLC_CEO) October 21, 2019
“Since then, every time I approach security to enter a festival or gig, I get scared and wonder if it’s going to happen to me all over again,” Meredith said in a statement.
Strip searches have a dark history in New South Wales, and are legally required to meet a threshold of urgency and seriousness to be legally employed by officers. However, a drug detection by a police sniffer dog — which regularly returns false positive results at a rate of 74 percent — is usually coupled with superficial mannerisms like appearing nervous or intoxicated to justify a search.
The Snr Constable says she can’t recall conducting the strip search of a 16yr old girl at the 2018 Splendour in the Grass festival,even though her name is on the police report. Chief Commissioner at the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission is incredulous: “This was only last year!”
— Julia Holman (@JulesHolman) October 22, 2019
A sixteen-year-old girl burst into tears after being forced to strip naked by police at Splendour in the Grass in 2018. During the search which took place without a parent or guardian present, she was told to squat as an officer looked underneath her to supposedly search for drugs.
“I could not stop crying. I was completely humiliated.” the girl said in a testimony delivered at a Law Enforcement Conduct Commission into police strip searches in 2019. “Every time I saw a police officer at the festival I started to feel anxious. My whole body would clench up and I would get clammy and hot. I was scared to make eye contact with them in case it happened again. Each time I walked into the festival I would feel anxious.”
counsel assisting shared some Splendour In The Grass 2018 drug search statistics with the hearing
total searches: 512
total searches where an item found: 125 (24%)total strip searches: 143
total strip searches where an item found: 12 (8.4%)https://t.co/h7BMVLHOTT— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) October 21, 2019
A lead solicitor from the Redfern Legal Centre Samantha Lee says that hopefully the class action suit will serve as a “trojan horse” to additionally limit the power being used by police in settings other than music festivals.
“What we’re hoping is that police are not allowed to use strip searches on the suspicion of minor drug possession,” Lee told Junkee. “This would cut out so many strip searches because the majority of strip searches are conducted by police because of suspicion of minor drug possession.”
While strip searches at music festivals have been linked to causing drug overdoses, due to people ingesting dangerous quantities of drugs to avoid persecution by authorities, Lee told Junkee that outside of music festivals police searches predominately affect First Nation’s people.
“I can’t believe personally that an adult in this day and age who is employed by a government agency, is allowed to order a child as young as ten to take off all their clothes and move their genitals.”