Lawyers have launched a class action investigation into what they believe could be hundreds of “unlawful” strip searches by New South Wales Police of patrons at the Splendour in the Grass Music Festival.
In May last year Guardian Austraelia revealed law firm Slater and Gordon and the Redfern Legal Centre had begun investigating the possibility of a class action against New South Wales police, alleging “systemic” misuse of strip searches in the state.
It came after concerns about the use of strip searches stemming from watchdog investigations, coroner’s reports and internal police documents. Now, more than a year later, the two firms have announced the class action will go ahead focused on police actions at Splendour in the Grass, one of the largest music festivals in Australia.
Slater and Gordon’s senior associate, Dr Ebony Birchall, said investigations carried out by the firms had uncovered what they say is evidence “hundreds of people who were searched by police at Splendour may have been subject to unlawful searches”.
“An unlawful police search is classified by law as an assault and gives rise to compensation,” she said.
The decision to focus the class action solely on police searches at Splendour in the Grass comes after an inquiry by the NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) heard evidence of six children being subject to potentially unlawful searches at the music festival in 2018.
The evidence was heard during a public inquiry into strip searches, and included a 16-year-old girl was left fearful and in tears after she was forced to strip naked in front of police.
Sam Lee, the Redfern Legal Centre’s police powers solicitor, told the Guardian that the LECC’s investigations, as well as initial findings from its investigations, had prompted it to focus on Splendour in the Grass.
“From those cases there was a prima facie overview where we found that the searches at Splendour have a lot of common features,” she said.
“It’s also a family event so it takes in a wide spectrum of cases. This was a large group of people with very common aspects to their story which found common patterns of behaviour by both police and clientele.”
The LECC’s inquiry heard detailed evidence about police strip search practices at the music festival, including an admission from one officer that 19 searches that he conducted at the event in 2018 may have been illegal.
When the watchdog handed down its report last year it called on the NSW parliament to clarify the laws around strip searches, and while the NSW Police have since taken steps to update its policies and procedures, no changes to the legislation have been made.
That, Lee said, was one of the aims of the class action.
“There are two aspects to the action. One is most certainly seeking compensation for those who were searched but the other aspect is that through the case we’re shedding light on the legislative inadequacies,” she said.
“Although police have made changes, the law still allowed for children as young as 10 to be strip searched and it still allows for things like breasts to be lifted, and for kids to be strip searched without a parent or guardian present.
“Until you change the law we’re not going to see those aspects of strip searches that are causing the most amount of pain removed.”
Strip search laws in NSW began making headlines in 2019 after Guardian Australia revealed police had searched hundreds of children including girls as young as 12. The police minister David Elliott said at the time that he’d be happy for his children to be strip searched if they were at risk of doing something wrong.
The LECC’s inquiry was cut short after the NSW government decided not to renew the watchdog commissioner’s role two days before Christmas in 2019.
Before his departure, the former commissioner, Michael Adams QC, published a report calling on the parliament to clarify the legislation in relation to whether police were legally able to force people to squat or move their genitals during a search.
Splendour in the Grass co-founder Jessica Ducrou told SBS the festival “had no insight into NSW Police search processes at our festivals” and would “support our patrons who wish to come forward to call out and help stop unlawful conduct”.
