A woman who was illegally strip-searched by NSW police has been awarded $93,000 in a landmark class action that alleged the vast majority of strip searches conducted between 2018 and 2022 at music festivals were unlawful.
Justice Dina Yehia handed down her findings in the NSW supreme court on Tuesday in a class action brought by Slater and Gordon Lawyers and the Redfern Legal Centre against the state of NSW over allegedly unlawful strip-searches conducted by police at music festivals, including strip-searches of children.
The lead plaintiff, Raya Meredith, was awarded $93,0000 in damages, which included $43,000 in compensation and $50,000 in aggravated damages.
Three thousand people have signed on to the class action, but the affected cohort could be twice as large.
Days before the class action hearing began, police admitted in court documents that its strip-search of the lead plaintiff, Raya Meredith, was unlawful and unjustified, and ignored laws protecting her rights.
The state then withdrew the 22 witnesses, mostly police officers, who were set to contest the lead plaintiff’s version of events in the hearing which took place in May.
Meredith was at Splendour in the Grass when a drug dog sniffed in her direction but then walked on in 2018. The 27-year-old, who was postpartum at the time, was then taken into a makeshift tarpaulin tent, where a female police officer asked her to take all her clothes off, bend over and bare her bottom, drop her breasts and remove her tampon. At one point, a male officer walked in unannounced.
The search found no drugs and nothing else illegal.
More details soon …