Steven Attalla, 53, was apprehended by police in Darlinghurst early one morning in 2015 and taken to Kings Cross police station where he was submitted to a strip search.
According to Atalla, he was simply texting and smoking a cigarette when he was approached by the police officers.
NSW police argued the officers had reasonable grounds to search Attalla because of the time and location where he was found, but this argument was rejected by District Court Judge Phillip Taylor.
Taylor ruled the police officers operated with “reckless indifference” to their legal requirements.
In NSW, it is illegal to conduct a strip search unless the police officer suspects on reasonable grounds that it’s necessary for the purposes of a search.
Redfern Legal Centre has called on NSW Police to release an internal document detailing how police are applying strip search laws.
Samantha Lee, a solicitor from Redfern Legal Centre, argues it is in the public interest for such a document to be released as there are “potentially thousands of others who may have been subjected to humiliating, harmful and potentially unlawful searches.”
Read the full article here (10 daily, 25 June 2019)
