The woman awarded $93,000 after an illegal strip-search by NSW police feared until just before the trial that the officers who conducted the search would call her a liar, a court was told on Friday. This was despite the officers submitting statements 12 months earlier that they had no recollection of the woman or the search.
Lawyers for Raya Meredith and 6,000 music festivalgoers appeared before the NSW Court of Appeal on Friday, the final day of a two-day hearing where NSW is seeking leave to appeal after losing a class action over unlawful strip-searches at music festivals between 2018 and 2022. The state admitted in May 2025 to unlawfully strip-searching Meredith and withdrew its 22 witnesses, including the officer who conducted the search, days before the hearing.
Meredith was the only witness in the class action. In 2018, aged 27 and postpartum, she was strip-searched on her way into Splendour in the Grass in Byron Bay. A female officer asked her to remove all clothes, bend over, bare her bottom, drop her breasts, and remove her tampon. A male officer walked in unannounced. No drugs were found.
Justice Gleeson SC said the judge was right to award aggravated damages because Meredith reasonably thought she would be called a liar. He noted the state should have amended its defence earlier, given the officers had no recollection. The state is appealing on six grounds, including that the judge erred in awarding $20,000 in aggravated damages and $40,000 in compensatory damages for false imprisonment and assault.
The case also focused on the Law Enforcement Powers and Responsibilities Act (Lepra), which governs strip-searches. The state argued that section 230 permits use of reasonable force to aid a visual search, but class lawyers countered that the primary judge considered this general power does not override the prohibition on examining the body by touch.
