Sue Daniel reports for ABC News
It alleges police carried out unlawful acts including assault, battery and false imprisonment against festival goers while searching them for illicit substances.
Redfern Legal Centre solicitor Samantha Lee said she hopes there will also be significant changes to the law to stop NSW Police doing searches except under serious and urgent circumstances.
"The legislation still allows for a child as young as 10 to be strip searched in New South Wales without a parent present. It still provides no clarification around cavity searches and squatting and coughing," she said.
"It still allows police to strip search without a support person present. So we want to see not just internal policy changes, but some really significant changes to the law."
Ms Meredith said she had agreed to lead the class action because what police did was wrong.
"There are laws in place regarding when police can search a person, and how those searches are to be conducted, but they didn't follow them with me," she said.
On Friday, one festival goer tweeted a photo of police with sniffer dogs at an airport, checking passengers on their way to Splendour in the Grass, being held in Byron Bay.
In 2019, NSW Coroner Harriet Grahame said evidence showed a heavy police presence and drug detection dogs could be intimidating and precipitate "panic ingestion" and "dangerous preloading", which could increase the risk of illness or fatality.
Ms Lee said the personal damage to young people was significant and could be compared to the impact of sexual assault.
"There is a level of embarrassment and shame, some of them don't even tell their parents because they were strip searched for suspicion of drug use and so they hang on to this really deep harm and emotion for a very long time," she said.
"Every other government profession has strong child-protection policies, I see absolutely no reason why this practise (strip searching) is not removed from the NSW Police force."
Read the ful article: Hundreds join class action against NSW Police strip searches at music festivals (ABC, 23 July 2022)
