Police can use force to move body parts during strip-searches, NSW argues in appeal court | Australian police and policing
The state of New South Wales argues that police have the power to forcibly move body parts during strip searches in an appeal against a landmark class-action ruling.
Thursday was the first day of a two-day hearing in which NSW is seeking permission to appeal after losing a class action brought by lawyers for Slater and Gordon and the Redfern Law Center over illegal strip searches at music festivals between 2018 and 2022.
The state argues that Judge Dina Yehia erred in ruling in September that police did not have express authority to use reasonable force to move someone’s body parts during a strip search. NSW also argues in its appeal that the judge erred in awarding lead plaintiff Raya Meredith and awarded aggravated damages for the state’s conduct in the case, which was heavily criticized at hearings last year.
In May 2025, the state admitted to illegally strip-searching Meredith. This cut the hearings from the scheduled 20 days to just five days after police withdrew 22 witnesses called to object to Meredith’s version of events.
Meredith was the only witness in the class-action lawsuit involving more than 6,000 members. She was postpartum and 27 when she was strip-searched on her way to Splendor in the Grass in Byron Bay in 2018.
A female police officer asked her to take off all her clothes, bend over and expose her butt, drop her breasts, and remove her tampon. At one point, a male officer walked in unannounced.
Yehia awarded Meredith $93,000, including $20,000 in severance damages. It found that police suspicion that a person had a certain amount of prohibited drugs was “not sufficient to conduct a strip search”.
Perry Herzfield SC, for the State, argued on Thursday that Yehia erred in his six findings; This includes that if a person refuses to comply with a request to move body parts, police do not have the authority to use reasonable force to move those parts.
He told the court that section 230 of the Law Enforcement Powers and Responsibilities Act (Leprosy), when read together with the strip search provisions, allows police to use force to the extent reasonably necessary.
Herzfield said police’s authority to use reasonable force to move a person’s body parts does not extend to body cavities under Leprosy and, at the state’s discretion, can only be done to assist in a visual search, not a tactile search.
The lawyer said the implications of Yehia’s findings are not just limited to strip searches at music festivals, but also have implications for police strip searches of a person suspected of concealing a weapon.
Herzfield told the appeals court that the finding could mean that a person stopped could technically lie on the ground and refuse to take off their clothing, and that police would not have the power to force them to do so.
For example, he argued, an officer could use reasonable force to remove a person’s arm if they suspected he was hiding something under his arm.
Judge Kristina Stern asked Herzfield whether that authority meant police could ask someone to lift their chest for examination.
Herzfield did not respond directly to this example. He said leprosy does not allow examination “by tactile sensation” but an officer “can move someone’s arm to facilitate visual examination.”
Stern asked whether the state claimed that Lepra gave police the authority to direct someone to remove their tampon. Herzfield responded: “We’re not trying to justify it.”
The appeal continues before Chief Justice Andrew Bell, President Julie Ward and justices Anthony Payne, Anna Mitchelmore and Stern.
