News and Events

Redfern Legal Centre calls on the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force, Mal Lanyon, to stand down officers whose use of force at last Monday’s protest appears excessive, based on the available footage.

When Adriana moved from Brazil to Australia three years ago she was sold: a world-class education, nice weather, good pay and a prosperous life.

Redfern Legal Centre is calling on the NSW Government to reform the law to ban the strip searching of children unless a court order is obtained. 

The NSW Labor government will continue to use sniffer dogs and strip-searches at music festivals, despite the recommendations of a report it commissioned earlier this year. 

Slater and Gordon priority remains to secure a \settlement between the State of NSW and thousands of festivalgoers in the Strip Search class action. This follows the NSW Supreme Court’s finding that lead plaintiff Raya Meredith’s search was unlawful, a decision the State now intends to appeal.

The NSW Government has rejected a key Drug Summit recommendation to stop using drug dogs and strip searches for drug possession at music festivals during the drug-checking trial.

NSW Police are facing potentially having to pay millions in damages following a landmark ruling in a strip search class action lawsuit.

The state government has lost a landmark case involving the illegal strip search of a woman by NSW Police at a music festival in 2018. Sydney woman Raya Meredith was awarded $93,000 in damages. The case is part of a broader class action which extends to police strip searches at music festivals from 2016.

Police admitted to unlawfully strip-searching Raya Meredith in 2018 at Splendour in the Grass and withdrew all witnesses before court hearing.

Isabel was fined three times in one week in Sydney. ‘I was like, there’s been some kind of malfunction,’ she said Isabel didn’t even realise she had broken the law until three fines turned up in her mailbox. The fines – collectively worth more than $1,200 and nine demerit points – were all for seatbelt offences within the same week in Sydney while she helped a friend move house. “I was like, there’s been some kind of malfunction. This is impossible. I always wear my seatbelt,” Isabel recalled. On viewing the picture a detection camera had snapped of her, she realised that she had in fact been fined for wearing it incorrectly – she’s only 157cm and often puts the seatbelt under her arm so it doesn’t irritate her neck. “I have since learned that is an offence,” Isabel said.