Young woman's strip search akin to 'sexual assault', court told
WARNING: This article contains graphic content.
Last month, the state of NSW made a dramatic backflip in the case, admitting police acted unlawfully when they searched Raya Meredith at the Splendour In The Grass music festival, ordering her to bend over while naked and remove a tampon.
Her barrister Kylie Nomchong SC on Monday 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.
Kylie Nomchong SC said Raya Meredith was searched based on a drug dog sniffing in her direction.
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AAP: Regi Varghese
)
Ms Nomchong told the court her client was subjected to "assault, battery and false imprisonment" during the search, and the only basis for it had been a drug dog "sniffing in [Ms Meredith's] direction".
She said police did not follow the statutory safeguards that NSW parliament had put in place around strip searches.
"She was not asked for her consent, she was questioned during the search, the search was not done in private," Ms Nomchong said.
"She was asked to strip, expose all parts of her body, drop her breasts, bend over and expose her anus and vagina.
"We say these things are akin to things that would happen during a sexual assault."
'Not an isolated' incident
Ms Nomchong said that when Ms Meredith was following commands to bend over, "a male police officer walked into the cubicle unannounced and observed the plaintiff in this position".
No drugs were found during the search and Ms Nomchong said Ms Meredith was left traumatised.
She outlined 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," she said.
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New data obtained by the ABC has found First Nations and diverse communities were disproportionately represented in New South Wales police searches between 2020 and 2023.
Ms Nomchong said the state of NSW had failed to adequately train officers on strict rules that surround strip searches, and then deployed large numbers of police to music festivals between 2016 and 2022 knowing and expecting a large number of searches would be conducted.
She said the parliament had made it clear strip searches were only supposed to be used "in the most extreme of circumstances" but 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.
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