14-year-old found with MDMA at Good Life Lost City music festival in Sydney
Almost every teenager strip searched during a weekend music festival in Sydney was found with drugs, police say.
NSW police have revealed that all but one strip search lead to the discovery of illicit drugs at an underage music festival in Sydney on the weekend.
More than 40 searches were conducted at the Good Life Lost City music festival at Sydney Showground over the weekend including 12 strip searches, a NSW Police spokeswoman said. The festival at Sydney Olympic Park was an under-18s only event.
Of the 12 teenagers stripsearched, 11 were allegedly found to have drugs or alcohol on them.
The youngest teenager busted with drugs was 14 years old and the eldest was 17 years old.
One 17-year-old male was allegedly caught with 75 MDMA capsules and a knife in his shoe. Another 14-year-old was allegedly caught with four grams of ice.
While police said 11 of the 12 strip searches “resulted in positive detections” some parents took to social media to express their concern with the level of force used.
”I think your police were a bit heavy handed but all in all boys had an awesome time,” one parent said on Facebook.
”My daughter was taken to a room and strip searched. She was told to put her hands on the wall and not move or it’s classed as a threat,” another mum said on the social media platform.
NSW Police said if someone was to retrieve an item that had been concealed internally themselves that it was classified as a strip-search.
NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge on Monday accused police of abusing young people by exposing them to the highly intrusive procedure.
“We know from communication from some of those children that in the course of those strip-searches they were made to undertake the humiliating process of squatting so the police could observe them from those humiliating angles,” he said.
“Were any of them carrying drugs that would in anyway justify this kind of ritual abuse of children?”
Mr Shoebridge claims police are routinely breaching the law and likely exposing NSW taxpayers to a hefty compensation bill. Redfern Legal Centre’s head of police accountability, Sam Lee, says people between the ages of 10 and 17 must have a parent or guardian present during a strip-search.
However, there’s an “opt-out clause” in NSW which means if a parent or guardian is not present and police believe the search is urgent, they can proceed, Ms Lee said.
“We all want young people to be safe, but whether something is found or not found, what we do want is for the law to be adhered to,” she said speaking alongside Mr Shoebridge.
“What we want here in NSW is for young children not to be exposed to this process that traumatises them for months on end.”
With AAP
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