In May 2020, the Redfern Legal Centre and Slater & Gordon announced their plans to launch a class action suit into allegedly unlawful strip searches conducted at music festivals by NSW Police.
That plan has come to fruition, with more than 100,000 punters set to receive notices about a class action suit. An expected four-week trial is scheduled to begin on 5 May 2025.
Over 100,000 music festival attendees who attended events in the last six years will receive notices, with the class action filed by Slater & Gordon Lawyers and Redfern Legal Centre in July 2022. The suit has been filed against the state of NSW “on behalf of” those who NSW Police have allegedly invasively and unlawfully searched between 2016 and 2022.
Slater & Gordon Lawyers and Redfern Legal Centre have alleged that NSW Police “carried out unlawful acts including assault, battery and false imprisonment” by strip-searching festivalgoers to find illicit substances.
According to a press release, the notice that’s being sent to punters will inform them of the trial proceedings, explain how they can register their interest in participating, and provide instructions on how to opt-out if they no longer wish to be a part of the class action suit.
Slater & Gordon Associate Jordyn Keating commented that sending the notice is “a standard step” in the class action process.
Keating continued, “Anyone who has any questions about the class action, or their legal rights in respect of being strip-searched at a music festival in NSW between 2016 and 2022, should visit Slater & Gordon’s website. The firm has a dedicated team available for inquiries related to this proceeding.”
Samantha Lee, the Police Accountability Solicitor at Redfern Legal Centre, added: “This action has the potential to hold NSW Police accountable and offer legal recourse, providing justice to hundreds of individuals who have endured invasive, often traumatic, and unlawful strip searches.”
To find out more about the class action and trial, you can visit the Slater & Gordon website.
In August 2022, Purple Sneakers’ Parry Tritsiniotis reported that NSW Police strip-searched over 100 children and 4,400 adults in a two-year period. Some of the children were as young as thirteen.
According to data released to the Redfern Legal Centre, Indigenous Australians made up 10% of the searches despite only being 3.4% of the state’s population, and 18% of all children searched were Indigenous.
In some areas, the proportion was even worse, with 50% of the strip search subjects in Dubbo being Indigenous. The data also showcased that nothing illegal was found in 60% of the strip searches.
A spokesperson from NSW Police told The Guardian that powers such as “searches and move-on directions have been proven to significantly drive down crime” and were part of the “various proactive strategies” used to achieve “ongoing commitment to reducing crime and the fear of crime in the community.”
In 2020, an inquest that four strip searches – one at Splendour In The Grass 2018 and three at Lost City 2019 – were deemed unlawful.
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