Lavender Baj reports for Junkee.
Slater and Gordon has launched a class action against the New South Wales Police, following a 2020 investigation in partnership with Redfern Legal Centre into strip searches — more broadly — over the last six years.
“We think that people who have undergone an unlawful strip search will be entitled to substantial compensation, so in serious cases, the compensation could be tens of thousands of dollars,” Ebony Birchall, class actions lawyer at Slater and Gordon told triple j’s Hack.
“Strip searches are highly invasive procedures and the law prescribes a very strict test for when they are lawful. The circumstances have to be very serious and urgent in order for a strip search to be justified,” Alexis Goodstone, principal solicitor at Redfern Legal Centre told Hack.
“We know from the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, that strip searches in the context of music festivals, for reasonable suspicion of drug possession alone, are not likely to be lawful and yet we know that at Splendour that was the basis for most of the searches that were going on.
If you were illegally strip-searched after 2016, you can contact Slater and Gordon via their website to join the class action.
Read the full article here. (Junkee, 16 November 2021)
