Police had 'no idea' about strip search laws, watchdog finds

The NSW police watchdog has found officers who unlawfully strip searched children at music festivals, an Aboriginal boy on the street, and other victims of illegal procedures, didn't understand the law and lacked the training to abide by it.

Law Enforcement Conduct Commission urged NSW Police to adopt a firm policy on exactly when strip searches should be conducted after one officer conceded to a public inquiry all 19 strip searches he conducted at a festival may have been illegal.

Police were found to have broken the law multiple times during the strip search of a 16-year-old Aboriginal boy in a regional town.

The government oversight body also criticised police over the lack of privacy they provided people being made to undress, and dismissed notions that the belief that many festival patrons concealing drugs in internal cavities amounted to enough reasonable suspicion to search.

Officers' reliance upon festivalgoers becoming nervous when confronted by police and sniffer dogs was equally problematic, the commission found.

The commission released five reports into allegations of illegal strip searches on Friday, finding all of them had been undertaken unlawfully and none of them resulted in finding prohibited drugs.

"In each report the commission has found that the involved police lacked the appropriate understanding of the legal requirements regarding the conduct of strip searches and had not received adequate training," it said in a statement.

A police sniffer dog inspects revellers at a NSW music festival.Credit: AAP

The commission said it was satisfied NSW Police had undertaken measures to address its concerns. The force has instituted many changes affecting the way its officers conduct strip searches, including the creation of a personal search manual, two brochures, improved procedures for recording information, and the development of mandatory training.

A NSW Police spokesperson said the force would consider the recommendations and findings made by the commission. "The NSW Police force is committed to continuous improvement and has developed initiatives to standardise operational orders and enhance compliance," the spokesperson said.

One of the reports was into the strip searching of three boys, aged 15-17, at an under-age music festival at Sydney Olympic Park in February 2019, during which an officer told one of the teens to "hold your dick, lift your balls up and show me your gooch".

Another found officers acted illegally in requiring a 16-year-old girl to take off her clothes at Splendour in the Grass in Byron Bay in 2018 in absence of a parent or guardian, which is unlawful.

"I could not believe this was happening to me; I could not stop crying; I was completely humiliated," the girl, whose identity has been suppressed, said in a statement read out to a public hearing in October last year.

The commission also found that search was unlawful because the door flap in the designated area didn't fully close.

Another investigated unlawful strip searches of a 16-year-old Aboriginal boy in the street of a large regional town, and later in the vehicle dock of the local police station in November 2018.

The commission found a sergeant committed a "humiliating abuse of power" upon the boy, which the other officers failed to report, and the evidence of all officers involved showed they had "no idea" they were committing multiple breaches of the law.

Operation Karuka dealt with two strips searches of a handcuffed Aboriginal male in a Sydney police station in June 2017, while Operation Sandbridge looked into the unlawful arrest and strip searching of a man, 53, in Sydney in March 2015 and his failed prosecution for hindering police. In that case the NSW District Court ordered police to pay the man $112,000 in damages plus legal costs.

By law, police are only permitted to carry out field strip-searches if the urgency and seriousness of the situation requires it.

But after hearing many officers, including senior ranking police, had trouble explicitly defining what that meant, the LECC recommended NSW Police take a policy position on what would satisfy the "seriousness and urgency" threshold and communicate it to its officers.