A sports science student has allegedly been mistreated by police at a NSW music festival.
Lucy Moore, aged 19, claims to have had only one drink – a vodka and coke mix; after which she alleges police treated her like a criminal for an apparent drug detection.
As news.com.au reports, the young festival-goer consumed her beverage, and after some amount of time, entered the festival. Moore and her partner walked to the VIP area to collect their VIP passes. After this, she claims, police made allegations of a drug detection.
In a statement posted to Facebook, she claims, “Me and my boyfriend walked back out of the festival to collect our VIP lanyards as we hadn’t received them… as I was walking back to the entrance gate a police officer walked up to me and quickly told me I had been detected by the sniffer dog despite me never seeing the dog react or sit.”
The third-time festival attendee claims she had walked past “plenty of dogs” prior to this. It was after this, that she was flanked to an area where they could search her.
“I was taken away by another police officer and was told nothing of what was about to happen, I was never asked for my consent to be searched let alone my consent to be strip searched,”
According to her understanding, there needs to be reasonable suspicion of drug carriage, and there needs to be a pat-down first. The search should also be conducted in private – away from the view of officers of the opposite sex. The young attendee claims this wasn’t the case.
She claims she was taken aside for an “embarrassing” strip search. “Not only did I see other people being searched, during my search the door was left half open and only ‘blocked’ by the small female cop,” she states.
She adds, “I could easily see outside which means that attendees and the male cops outside could have easily seen in as well. Not only this, a girl in the cubicle next to me was also searched with her door still open with a couple cops entering and leaving at will.”
It was after this, she claims, that she was “let go” and then chased by another cop. The officer allegedly started to interrogate her — asking what she had taken and why the dog had sat next to her.
“I told her I had taken nothing, I had drank one vodka and coke in my hotel and that I had no idea why the dog sat,” Ms Moore claims. “To this, she said ‘no, that won’t fly here’ and left.”
She was then supposedly held for at least an hour, after no drugs or alcohol were found on her body, and an officer stating she had zero signs of intoxication. Ms Moore was then kicked out of the festival, and given a six month ban from Sydney Olympic Park.
Since the young festival attendee shared her story on social media, she has garnered over 2,000 Facebook shares, and over 12,000, primarily angry, reacts on her post.
Tone Deaf has reached out to Lucy Moore for comment.
