Yahoo News NSW police watchdog to investigate strip-searches at underage music festival
New South Wales police officers are being investigated over the strip-search of “several” minors at an underage music festival this year.
On Wednesday the state’s police watchdog, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, will announce public hearings into the strip-search of “several young people” at the Lost City Music festival, an under-18s event held in Sydney in February.
Set down for the first week in December, the hearings form part of an ongoing investigation by the watchdog into the practice of strip-searching minors, and come amid increasing scrutiny of the possible misuse of the controversial police power.
Related: NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller says strip-search of girl at festival 'doesn't make me happy'
It also comes as the state’s police commissioner, Mick Fuller, engages in a high-profile campaign defending the use of strip-searches. In a front-page interview with Sydney’s Daily Telegraph this week, Fuller said young people should have “a little bit of fear” of police.
Fuller also claimed reducing strip-searches could lead to an increase in knife crime despite less than 1% of all searches in the state being conducted for that reason.
The LECC hearings will shine further light on the use of strip-searches on minors after public hearings in October revealed the allegedly illegal strip-search of a 16-year-old girl at the 2018 Splendour in the Grass festival.
The inquiry heard the girl was left fearful and in tears after she was forced to strip naked and squat in front of a police officer who then “looked underneath” her. The search took place without a parent or guardian present, a potential breach of police powers.
“I could not believe this was happening to me,” the girl said in a prepared statement read out in the inquiry by the counsel assisting the commissioner, Peggy Dwyer. “I could not stop crying. I was completely humiliated.”
This month, Guardian Australia revealed police performed strip-searches on more than 100 girls in the last three years, including two 12-year-olds and eight 13-year-olds.
The Guardian also revealed other instances of potentially illegal strip-searches, including a woman who recounted a female officer having “jiggled” her breasts during a search when she was 15 years old in 2011.
The revelations prompted the NSW Labor opposition to call for a review of the laws governing strip-searches, with the shadow police spokeswoman, Lynda Voltz, questioning the justification for using the power against children.
Related: NSW police commissioner 'misleading' for linking strip-searches to knife crime
Two weeks ago the NSW deputy coroner, Harriet Graeme, also called for a wind-back of their use, saying the “wholesale practice of strip-searching young people” was of “grave concern” and recommended police only use the practice in cases where officers suspect someone is involved in drug supply rather than possession.
In NSW, officers are only able to conduct a strip-search outside of a police station if the urgency and seriousness of the situation requires it. In the case of minors, a parent or guardian must be present unless an immediate search is necessary to protect the person or prevent the destruction of evidence.
However, the use of the practice in the context of music festivals has drawn considerable criticism.
During the LECC hearings in October, the commissioner, Michael Adams QC, questioned under what circumstances – apart from a suspicion someone was hiding drugs in a body cavity, which police are not allowed to search – it would be urgent for an officer to conduct a strip search at a music festival.
That question, to a senior constable who worked at the 2018 Splendour in the Grass, prompted the officer to concede that all 19 strip searches he conducted at the festival may have been illegal.
