Sounds like a nightmare for anyone, but that’s what a teenage girl know to the public as BRC says happened to her at last year’s Splendour in the Grass festival here in Byron.
A drug sniffer dog approached her in the line and sat down beside her, triggering the polcei response.
She said she couldn’t stop crying during the strip search, which failed to produce any drugs, just as in some 90% of such searches.
The stats have been revealed in a public hearing in Sydney this week as part of a state police watchdog inquiry into strip-search powers.
Sam Lee from the Redfern Legal Centre was at the hearing on Monday and spoke to Echonetdaily.
“The counsel assisting the Commission has asked “can a police officer look up a 16-year-old’s vagina’, Ms Lee read from her notes, and the police representative said, “police can use force when carrying out a strip search”.
“Commissioner Michael Adams then asked, ‘how much force?’”, continued Ms Lee, who said the police representative replied, “well you need to take a look to see what’s in there.”
The inquiry also heard of strip searches where boys and men were made to lift their genitals so officers could inspect underneath.
The police officer confirmed a positive response from a sniffer dog was not enough to warrant a strip-search but said many police didn’t understand what was ‘serious and urgent’ when doing strip searches.
“The incident described in the hearing was incredibly distressing”, said Ms Lee, who also said the young woman who came forward was traumatised by the process.
Young people are legally entitled to have a support person with them during strip-searches, Ms Lee said.
BRC had no one.
143 strip-searches reportedly took place at last year’s Splendour in the Grass, seven of which are alleged to have involved minors.
Greens upper house member and party spokesperson for justice, David Shoebridge, told Echonetdaily that BRC’s evidence was ‘not an isolated case’.
Read the full article here (Echonetdaily, 22 October 2019)
