Two women who were strip-searched by police as teenagers speak out about their experiences

A woman who was subjected to a potentially illegal strip-search as a 15-year-old in which, she says, a female officer “jiggled” her breasts has described it as an “intimidating” and “traumatic” experience.

Guardian Australia revealed on Wednesday that police in New South Wales have strip-searched 122 girls, including two 12-year-olds, in the past three years.

The shocking figures come as the state’s police watchdog investigates the potentially illegal strip-search of a 16-year-old girl at a music festival in 2018 and have led to calls from the Redfern Legal Centre – which first obtained the data – for a ban on strip-searching minors unless a court order is obtained.

Revealed: NSW police strip-searched more than 100 girls, including 12-year-olds Read more

In 2011, Madz Piper, now 23 and living in Port Macquarie on the NSW mid-north coast, was taken to a Sydney police station after a minor incident. At the station, Piper says she was asked by an officer whether she “had anything”. When she produced a cigarette lighter, she was told she would be strip-searched.

“My parents hadn’t even been notified by then that I’d been [taken to the station], but when I pulled the lighter out they told me I had to be strip-searched,” she said.

Piper was taken into an interview room where a female police officer instructed her to strip down to her bra and underpants. Despite still being in her underwear, she was told to “squat and cough” by the officer, before she says the officer “grabbed” her bra and “jiggled it”.

“She basically grabbed into my bra from underneath at the front and then pulled it out to wiggle it,” Piper said.

“She hooked her fingers into the bottom of the bra and sort of pulled it out and given it a good wiggle and jiggle around.”

The search Piper described was potentially illegal. In NSW, police must have a parent, guardian or support person present during the strip-search of a minor unless it’s necessary for the safety of the person, or to prevent evidence being destroyed.

They are also not permitted to conduct a search of a person’s breasts unless the officer suspects “on reasonable grounds that it is necessary to do so for the purposes of the search” and cannot conduct “an examination of the body by touch”.

Piper, who has police in her family and believes most officers “aren’t bullies”, says the experience has nonetheless had a “traumatic” effect on her.

“When it happened, honestly, at the time I was really self-conscious about my body, so when they made me go into the room with [the female officer] and then strip to my undies it was already so intimidating,” Piper told Guardian Australia.

“But the way she grabbed my bra and pulled it and sort of jiggled it, it felt properly violating. It was very, it was really violating. It made me really uncomfortable. And, you know, I didn’t realise it wasn’t allowed, I didn’t know I could say no. I was 15, you just do what you’re told.”

The experience Piper described will raise further concerns about the use of police strip-search powers, and the long-term impact of the searches on young people.

Peta Malins, a lecturer in criminology and justice studies at the RMIT University in Victoria, said it was “horrifying” to think about the impact of the searches on children and young people.

“This has a really significant impact for anyone, but for kids to be being searched like that there is a real risk of a longer-term trauma,” she said.

“Just the sense of powerlessness, it’s not necessarily a sexual assault, but it’s still an assault in the sense of an invasion of someone’s body and bodily autonomy, which has very similar overlaps with a form of sexual assault.”

Malins, who this year published a study on the emotional impact of drug dog detections and strip-searches, said the risk of long-term impacts both from trauma and a loss of trust in police were significant.

“One of the things that came out of the research was how much people who were strip-searched were impacted in their perception of police, it produced a fear of them and a loss of trust,” she said.

“I think that’s huge if we think about numbers of people who are being searched at music festivals and in those contexts.”

It’s a feeling 19-year-old Lucy Moore understands. Moore, from Newcastle, north of Sydney, was strip-searched by police at the Hidden music festival in Sydney in March.

After being stopped by officers with a drug-detection dog, she was taken to a room where a female officer instructed her to strip naked, squat and cough. She said that during the search, the female officer left the door to the room open, and that she could still see the male officers standing outside.

“At the time it was sort of happening too quickly to really think about what to do,” she told Guardian Australia.

“They didn’t really even question whether I was innocent, they just assumed I was guilty. The whole thing felt really degrading. I cried a lot.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lucy Moore says she was strip-searched by police at the Hidden music festival in Sydney in March and feels she can no longer trust police. Photograph: Supplied

Despite not having any drugs on her, Moore says she was held by police for more than an hour after the search and continued to be interrogated by police.

She told Guardian Australia she no longer felt she could trust police after the incident.

“I’ve never had any trouble with police before, you know, not even a parking ticket, and so I went in thinking I’m going to be fine, I’ve done nothing wrong,” she said.

“But the way they treated me, I can’t look at them the same. You see them and you just feel like you know they’re going to do something to you. You think it’s going to happen again. Their presence just makes me feel so uneasy.”

The NSW Greens upper house MP David Shoebridge said strip-searches had become “disturbingly normal” for police.

“Strip-searches are basically a form of legalised sexual assault, and when they are performed unlawfully this should be treated as a serious crime,” he said.

NSW police minister defends strip-searching of children, saying parents would be 'happy' Read more

“There have been so many cases of abuse that parliament needs to step up and limit police powers and properly fund police oversight.”

The use of strip-search powers in NSW has been placed under increased scrutiny since the Law Enforcement and Conduct Commission held public hearings for its investigation into the potentially illegal strip-search of a 16-year-old girl at a 2018 music festival.

The inquiry heard some officers at the festival were not aware of their obligations in relation to the search of minors, and one senior constable admitted that all 19 of the searches he conducted may have been illegal.

Last week the LECC revealed it investigated six separate allegations of misuse of strip-search powers by police last year.

After the Guardian revealed on Wednesday that 122 minors including two 12-year-olds had been strip-searched in the last three years, the NSW police minister, David Elliott, said he “would want” officers to strip-search his children if they were suspected of breaking the law.