By Michaela Whitbourn
Warning: graphic content
It was a weekend marred by trauma. Raya Meredith could not have known when she bought a ticket to the Splendour in the Grass music festival in July 2018 that it would end in a landmark lawsuit set to cost the state millions.
Before she even entered the gates at the three-day event, the then-27-year-old was subjected by NSW Police to an invasive strip-search after being approached by an officer with a sniffer dog.
A file image of an attendee and police at the Field Day Festival in Sydney in January 2020. Credit: Isabella Porras
Meredith was directed to an area containing makeshift cubicles at the North Byron Parklands. Her bag was taken. She was told by a female police officer to pull down her top, exposing her breasts, to take off her shorts and underwear, to remove a tampon, and to bend over.
Meredith pulled slightly on the string of the tampon. Later, a male police officer came into the cubicle with her bag while she was bending over. He did not knock.
No drugs were found on her.
Meredith became the lead plaintiff in 2022 in a 3000-member class action in the NSW Supreme Court, challenging the lawfulness of police strip-searches at music festivals.
In a surprise development this year, the state of NSW radically changed course and admitted the strip-search of Meredith was unlawful, while denying broader allegations of unlawful conduct.
Huge damages
In a landmark decision on Tuesday that paves the way for the state to pay millions of dollars for unlawful strip-searches, Justice Dina Yehia awarded Meredith $93,000 in damages plus interest.
This included $43,000 in compensatory damages for assault, battery and false imprisonment, and $50,000 in aggravated damages.
Yehia said Meredith was also entitled to exemplary damages, a form of punitive damages, but this figure has not yet been quantified.
The award of aggravated damages covered conduct during the search ($30,000) as well as during the case ($20,000), including the initial claim by the state that the search was lawful. It had made assertions “wholly without basis”, Yehia said.
Meredith said in a statement that the proceedings had been “harrowing and traumatising” and she would now “like to see justice for all in the class action”.
In a summary of her decision, the judge said there had been a “flagrant” disregard of Meredith’s rights and a “gross failure” to comply with legal safeguards.
Yehia said the state of NSW had “extended no apology whatsoever” to Meredith. This was “confounding” and akin to an “own goal”, the judge said.
Meredith had been “excited for the first day of the festival” before she was stopped by police, Yehia said.
Meredith felt “apprehensive and frightened” and believed she could not refuse to go with a male officer, the judge said. She was directed into a cubicle for the strip-search by a female officer.
“She recalled feeling disgusted that another woman was putting her through this,” Yehia said. The ordeal lasted for about half an hour.
Historic class action
The class action was led by Redfern Legal Centre and Slater and Gordon Lawyers.
Slater and Gordon’s William Zerno and Redfern Legal Centre’s Sam Lee hold a media conference outside the NSW Supreme Court shortly after the judgment.Credit: Steven Siewert
Slater and Gordon’s William Zerno said the case was “the largest class action against any police force in Australian history” and the judgment had far-reaching implications affecting potentially thousands of strip-searches.
“We thank the lead plaintiff, Raya, for having the courage to bring this litigation for a degrading experience that she should never have been subjected to,” Zerno said.
Lawyers for the group members urged the state “to bring this shameful chapter to a close by negotiating a settlement for the remainder of the group”, he said.
“If a sensible settlement cannot be achieved, the costs to the state will be far higher.”
Redfern Legal Centre’s Samantha Lee said the decision had been “powered by the courage of young people and children” and “there are potentially millions [of dollars] on the table”.
The lawyers alleged that “between at least 2016 and 2019, there developed a practice or pattern of [NSW Police] … carrying out strip-searches of attendees at music festivals as a matter of routine” and without lawful justification.
Emma’s* story
Emma*, a member of the class action who asked The Sydney Morning Herald to use a pseudonym to protect her privacy, said she was 18 when she was subjected to an invasive strip-search by police at Sydney’s Midnight Mafia musical festival in 2018. No drugs were found on her.
The decision was validation after seven long years, she said, and “a step forward, but it’s not the final outcome for all the victim-survivors”.
Emma said she had participated in the class action for justice, but this was not tied to a “monetary value”. She wanted to see real changes, including an overhaul of the use of police sniffer dogs, in light of the high incidence of false positives.
No seriousness and urgency
The NSW Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act (LEPRA) says a strip-search may be carried out when an officer “suspects on reasonable grounds that the strip-search is necessary for the purposes of the search and … the seriousness and urgency of the circumstances” make it necessary.
Yehia found those preconditions were not satisfied in Meredith’s case. There was an “irresistible inference” that officers believed the strip-search was justified because the police dog made an “indication” towards her, but this was “entirely wrong”.
No reasonable privacy
Yehia said drug-harm minimisation was profoundly important, but there were strict legal safeguards on the use of strip-searches. The search involved “significant non-compliance” with those safeguards and did not afford Meredith reasonable privacy.
She noted the number of strip-searches carried out at Splendour in the Grass in 2019 dropped by nearly 90 per cent compared with the previous year. Yehia was satisfied improvements had been made by the force after 2018.
The claims of other members of the class action, and any damages payable to them, have yet to be determined. The parties return to court on October 31.
No apology
NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley said police would “carefully consider” the decision but did not offer an apology.
“Strip-searching remains a crucial investigative tool for police and it’s important for maintaining the safety of the community, our officers and the people subject to searches,” she said.
“Strip-searches are not undertaken lightly, which is why there are safeguards built into legislation that police must comply with.”
She said police had made “significant operational changes” to their strip-search policies and procedures, as recommended by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission and the Coroner’s Court.
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