The Supreme Court of NSW has awarded a woman $93,000 after police unlawfully strip searched her at a music festival in 2018.
Raya Meredith led a class action lawsuit against NSW Police, arguing they did not have justifiable cause to search her.
A class action is a type of lawsuit where many people are represented by one entity.
The Court’s decision has paved the way for other people to receive compensation for unlawful strip searches.
Strip searches
To conduct a strip search, police officers must reasonably suspect a person of carrying an unlawful item, like drugs.
In NSW, where this lawsuit was filed, police can’t perform a strip search at a festival unless the “seriousness and urgency of the circumstances” make it “necessary”.
During a strip search, an officer cannot search a “person’s body cavities”. Police “must not” ask a person to remove “more clothes” than is “reasonably necessary”. Searches should be conducted in private by a person of the same sex.
The case
This class action was filed with the NSW Supreme Court on behalf of more than 3,000 plaintiffs who were subjected to strip searches from 2016 to 2022.
The lawsuit centred on the experience of lead plaintiff Raya Meredith, who was strip-searched at the Splendour in the Grass festival in 2018, at age 27.
According to court documents, a police officer with a sniffer dog tapped Meredith on the shoulder at the festival entrance and took her to a “makeshift area” nearby.
Meredith told the court the area where she was searched was “comprised of a number of open makeshift cubicles... open in the direction of a screen [that was] approximately 1.5 metres high.”
The area “did not allow [Meredith] privacy“ from people entering the festival.
Inside the cubicle, Meredith said she was “forced to remove her top, expose her breasts, and lift them” by a female officer.
She was then instructed to remove her shorts and underwear, and then told to “pull out [her] tampon and show it to the female police officer.”
The female officer “bent down and inspected the plaintiff’s vagina as she pulled on the string of the tampon,” court documents say.
At this point, Meredith said she was told to “bend over with her buttocks facing” the officer.
The plaintiff recalled feeling “disgusted that another woman was putting [her] through this.”
A male police officer then entered the area “without warning,” Meredith said. The encounter lasted about 30 minutes.
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No drugs or illegal items were found on her or in her belongings.
Police defence
The lawyers defending NSW Police originally argued the strip search was justified because a police dog had made an “indication” towards Meredith. However, they eventually conceded that the strip search was unlawful.
NSW Police also admitted Meredith was falsely imprisoned, assaulted, put in fear and subject to a significant loss of dignity.
NSW Police agreed her suffering was increased by “the unlawful and unjustifiable actions” of the officers.
Ruling
Supreme Court Justice Dina Yehia awarded Meredith $93,000 as compensation for battery, assault, false imprisonment, and aggravated damages.
Yehia said Meredith would also be entitled to additional damages in an effort to deter police from undertaking similarly unlawful searches in the future. This figure has not yet been calculated.
In her judgment, Yehia made note of the fact that NSW Police had “extended no apology whatsoever” to Meredith.
“The absence of an apology is akin to an own goal,” she said.
The judge found police did not provide sufficient evidence to prove the necessity, urgency and seriousness needed to legally perform the strip search.
She called the training of police officers “wholly inadequate”.
Slater and Gordon, who led the class action alongside the Redfern Legal Centre, said “the implications of these findings alone will likely render thousands of police strip searches of young people at music festivals to be unlawful.”
Class action
As for the 3,000 other people who were part of this class action, the court has not yet determined what they will be entitled to, if anything.
Yehia said the NSW Government could be liable to pay up to $150 million in damages.
Slater and Gordon said it is urging NSW Police to negotiate a settlement for the remainder of the group.
"If a sensible settlement cannot be achieved, the costs to the State will be far higher.”
The matter will return to court later this month.
