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It also admitted her hurt and damage was increased by “the unlawful and unjustifiable actions” of the officers and “suffering this humiliation, indignity and assault at an event that was supposed to be positive and joyful”.
Huge damages
In a landmark decision on Tuesday that paves the way for others to receive compensation for unlawful strip searches, Justice Dina Yehia awarded Meredith $93,000 in damages plus interest.
This included $43,000 in compensatory damages and $50,000 in aggravated damages.
Yehia said Meredith was also entitled to exemplary damages, a form of punitive damages, but this figure has not yet been quantified.
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The award of aggravated damages covered conduct during the strip search ($30,000) as well as during the court case ($20,000), including the initial claim by the state of NSW that the search was lawful. It had made assertions “wholly without basis”, Yehia said.
The statutory requirements for carrying out strip searches were “overlooked” by police, the judge said.
There had been a “flagrant” disregard of Meredith’s rights and a “gross failure” to comply with legal safeguards.
Yehia said in a summary of her decision that the state of NSW had “extended no apology whatsoever” to Meredith despite its eventual concession that the strip search was unlawful. This was “confounding”, the judge said.
Meredith had been “excited for the first day of the festival” before she was stopped by police, Yehia said. “The process was not explained to her, nor was she asked for her cooperation.”
Meredith felt “apprehensive and frightened” and believed she could not refuse to go with a male officer, the judge said. She was directed into a cubicle for the strip search by a female officer.
“She recalled feeling disgusted that another woman was putting her through this,” Yehia said. The ordeal lasted for about half an hour.
The class action
The class action was led by Redfern Legal Centre and Slater and Gordon Lawyers.
On behalf of group members, the lawyers alleged that “between at least 2016 and 2019, there developed a practice or pattern of [NSW Police] ... carrying out strip searches of attendees at music festivals as a matter of routine and not in circumstances lawfully justified”.
The NSW Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act (LEPRA) sets out rules governing strip searches, including that the search “must not involve the removal of more clothes than the person conducting the search believes on reasonable grounds to be reasonably necessary for the purposes of the search”.
‘No seriousness and urgency’
The lawyers for the group members alleged the strip searches were not authorised by LEPRA because police officers “did not have reasonable grounds to suspect that the strip searches were necessary for the purposes of the search”, and “there was no seriousness and urgency of the circumstances which made the strip searches necessary”.
Yehia said the absence in police notebooks of any reference to necessity, urgency and seriousness in Meredith’s case was “one of several factors that demonstrates the extent of non-compliance by searching police”.
The judge said there was an “irresistible inference” that officers believed the strip search was justified because the police dog made an “indication” towards Meredith, but this was “entirely wrong”.
No reasonable privacy
Police were not confronted with a situation in which a spontaneous response was required, Yehia said, and the search involved “significant non-compliance with statutory safeguards”.
The search did not afford Meredith reasonable privacy and involved a male police officer appearing during the search “unannounced and without warning”.
Yehia said drug harm minimisation was a profoundly important subject for government, but there were strict legal safeguards on the use of strip searches.
The searches unquestionably represented a significant invasion of privacy and were often humiliating and traumatic, the judge said.
She noted the number of strip searches carried out at Splendour in the Grass in 2019 dropped by 90 per cent compared with the previous year. Yehia was satisfied that improvements had been made by the force after 2018.
