The woman leading a class action over strip-searches was subjected to a “humiliating” experience “akin to a sexual assault” while attending a music festival in 2018, a court has heard.
In a major reversal last month, the state of NSW admitted police acted unlawfully when they searched Raya Meredith at Splendour in the Grass, ordering her to bend over while naked and remove a tampon.
On Monday, a class action — led by Slater & Gordon Lawyers and the Redfern Legal Centre — commenced in the Supreme Court over the widespread unlawful searches across NSW music festivals.
As reported by ABC News, Meredith’s barrister Kylie Nomchong SC told the hearing her client would be making an additional claim for aggravated damages due to feelings of “hurt and distress” caused by police previously denying her account for more than two years.
Raya Meredith alleged she was subjected to assault, battery and false imprisonment by police at the Splendour in the Grass music festival in July 2018 after a drug detection dog sniffed in her direction, before moving on.
She was stopped and directed to a makeshift inspection area of open cubicles with tarpaulin screens near the entrance.
A male police officer allegedly walked in to the area where she was being searched, as a female officer interrogated and inspected her.
Nomchong said the inspection — which did not comply with legislated safeguards and did not find anything — left her client shocked and degraded.
Nomchong told the court her client was not asked for her consent, and the search was not done in private, per ABC News.
She was asked to strip, expose her genitals and remove a tampon during the search.
“We say these things are akin to things that would happen during a sexual assault,” Nomchong said.
She also highlighted the broader ramifications of the class action, which is believed to be one of the biggest ever brought against NSW Police.
“This is an extraordinary story, but it is not an isolated one,” she said. “There were many thousands of persons strip-searched at festivals in the claim period.”
While the state conceded in March that Meredith was unlawfully strip-searched, it has not accepted fault in relation to the more than 3,000 others who form part of the class action, as reported by AAP. The state allegedly deployed substantial police resources to music festivals to carry out mass strip-searches from 2016 to 2022.
But the directions were “woefully inadequate”, with senior leadership failing to ensure officers were properly trained and supervised.
The parliament had made it clear strip-searches were only supposed to be used “in the most extreme of circumstances”, Nomchong said, however that was not the way they were being executed by NSW Police.
“We say there was a pattern of conduct of NSW Police carrying out strip-searches at music festivals as a matter of routine,” she said.
The state’s barrister Julian Sexton SC told the court there might be a limit on damages and how much money that can be paid. The total exemplary damages could hit more than $150 million if sums of $50,000 were applied across the class action participants, for what are alleged to be systemic failures rather than individual instances, he said.
NSW Police blamed a change in priorities during COVID-19 public health orders and restrictions when acknowledging failures highlighted in a watchdog’s audit of strip-searches in 2023.
The case, which was slated to be heard over four weeks, has been adjourned until May 13 with further written submissions due in the coming days.
With input from the AAP.
Lead image: Getty / AAP
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