‘Senior echelons' of NSW Police's failure before woman's ‘humiliating' strip search: court
Raya Meredith was forced to undress in front of a police officer, lift her breasts, and remove her tampon during a 'humiliating' and terrifying strip search at the Splendour in the Grass music festival in 2018 that police later admitted was illegal.
The then-27-year-old is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit brought by Slater and Gordon and the Redfern Legal Centre against the state of NSW on behalf of more than 3000 people likely subjected to illegal strip searches between 2016-2022.
Ms Meredith's lawyer, Kylie Nomchong SC, has argued in her closing statements, which continued on Wednesday, that there was an 'abject failure' on the part of NSW Police to ensure proper training and supervision given to police doing searches.
Under the law, strip searches – which are recognised as being 'highly invasive and humiliating' – are supposed to be undertaken within specific statutory guidelines, including preconditions of 'seriousness and urgency' that they be done.
Ms Nomchong told the court on Tuesday that not a single COPS event log contained why a strip search was necessary, and the general duties officers were 'defective in their understanding of the basis on which strip searches could be carried out'.
'They were not supervised. They were not trained. And, as a direct result, that is why my plaintiff was unlawfully strip searched … along with others who attended the music festival in 2018,' Ms Nomchong said in her more than six-hour statement.
Resuming on Wednesday, Ms Nomchong urged the court to award exemplary damages 'not only to express the court's disapprobation but because of the manifest breaches of the (Law Enforcement Powers and Responsibilities Act) by searching officers.
Ms Nomchong went on to add 'but also because of the … manifest failures on the part of the senior echelons of the NSW Police Force responsible for both general and focus training for conducting strip searches' in the state at the time.
The state of NSW has maintained searching Ms Meredith's breast and genital area were 'objectively reasonably necessary', a claim Ms Nomchong described as 'outrageous' and claimed there was no 'no basis for the strip search in the first place'.
She told Judge Dina Yehia that she would have to make factual findings in relation to Ms Meredith's pleadings in the case but admitted damages might be mitigated by changes since made by police – changes she said were available at the time, too.
The state of NSW for 2½ years denied the search was unlawful.
In her evidence, recited by Ms Nomchong on Tuesday, Ms Meredith said she remembered 'wanting to scream at her (the officer). I remember feeling disgusted that another woman was putting me through this. I was nauseated by this point. I felt like vomiting.'
Ms Nomchong is seeking $5000 in damages for the 'pat down' as well as aggravated damages because of the 'colossal magnitude' of the contraventions made during the search, which was not lawful and 'breached nearly every safeguard'.
She also alleged lawyers representing the state of NSW had issued a subpoena to Services Australia for Ms Meredith's entire medical history despite there not being a claim for personal injury damages, 'having the effect of intimidating the plaintiff'.
'The plaintiff's evidence was if 'I could have walked out of this case then and there I would have',' Ms Nomchong said.
Much of Tuesday's hearing centred on what training was given to police, including at the police academy, in regard to the carrying out of strip searches as well as what Ms Nomchong claimed could have been done to avoid the contraventions.
She told the court that plans had been drawn up in response to a complaint made following a 2013 Mardi Gras afterparty and an investigation by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission as well as a sticker systems officers could have deployed.
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