News and Events

Following a class action led by leading law firm Slater and Gordon and Redfern Legal Centre, a judgment was today handed down in the Supreme Court of NSW which awarded significant damages to the lead plaintiff, Raya Meredith, for an unlawful strip search undertaken by NSW Police at the Splendour in the Grass Festival in 2018.

NSW Supreme Court to deliver strip search class action judgment

Taite Collins filmed his partner Collin Burling being surrounded by officers at their public housing block in Sydney’s Waterloo.

On the bad days, late at night, “Kate” finds herself back in the tent at a Sydney music festival, a terrified 18-year-old paralysed by fear. She’s been ordered to strip naked, cornered in the small space and is bending over in front of two female police officers searching her for illicit drugs.

New data reveals the number of juveniles in custody in New South Wales has risen by 34 per cent. Indigenous children make up for 60 per cent of the state's minors behind bars.

The report titled ‘The Use of Strip Searches & Drug Dogs in NSW’, based on 10 years of police data from 2014 to 2023, was released today by Harm Reduction Australia and Redfern Legal Centre.

Redfern Legal Centre calls on the New South Wales Government to make public transport free for everyone under 18 in the 2025/2026 Budget. The Victorian Government recently announced in its 2025/2026 Budget that from January 1, 2026, public transport will be free for children across the state. Redfern Legal Centre urges the NSW Government to introduce a similar policy in its upcoming state budget, due to be handed down in June.

The New South Wales police force knew drug detection dogs only have a “30% hit-rate” but continued to use them as the primary justification to strip-search people at music festivals, a court has heard.

A class action hearing led by Slater and Gordon Lawyers and the Redfern Legal Centre against the State of New South Wales, commenced on Monday, May 5th.

A centuries-old legal presumption that children aged between 10 and 14 don’t understand the difference between right and wrong is to be reviewed after New South Wales youth criminal conviction rates tumbled fivefold. The NSW attorney general’s office said the review will consider how the principle of doli incapax – Latin for “incapable of evil” – is applied in criminal proceedings, its impact on intervention, possible improvements and a framework for legislation. In NSW, the criminal age of responsibility is 10 but doli incapax can apply up to 14. The presumption can be rebutted if police can prove a child understood what they did was seriously wrong, as opposed to naughty. Geoffrey Bellew SC, the state parole authority chair and a former supreme court judge, and Jeffrey Loy, a former NSW police deputy commissioner, will lead the doli incapax review, the NSW attorney general, Michael Daley, said on Thursday.