NSW Police to pay $1.85M penalty for wrongfully detaining young people

The NSW Police has agreed to compensate AU$1.85 million to the large number of youngsters across the state for wrongfully detaining them as a result of errors in the police database. Around 100 people were put behind bars and, in some cases, even strip-searched by the police.

The in-principle settlement agreed upon by the lawyers of the police on Friday comes after almost five years since a class action was launched in the NSW Supreme Court. Under this settlement, each victim will receive compensation, the amount of which will depend upon the nature and intensity of the harm they had suffered.

"It's been absolutely crystal clear that there was a major problem in the COPS database and that young people were being very, very badly affected by it," said Edward Santow, the CEO of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), which helped run the case. "There was both a moral and a legal obligation to resolve the problem and to assist those young people who were badly affected."

Computer Operational Policing System, or COPS, is a database that is consulted by the police whenever they need information on a particular person. Since 2008, errors in the COPS have led to the unjust detention of around 100 people. Vice reported that the police has been strongly criticised by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre or PIAC for their slow action despite facing a trail of flaws in how COPS channelled information from the courts through another network, Justicelink. It was also found that COPS failed to update information on individuals’ bail conditions when cases were dropped or when the provisions of a bail arrangement were changed or altered.

Musa Konneh, who is involved in the class action suit, recalled his ordeal when he was wrongly arrested to the Sydney Morning Herald. He was handcuffed and taken to Penrith Court where he was strip-searched and kept overnight in jail.

Santow said that the incident did make Konneh frightened of the police, but at the same time it would be very difficult for him to go back to a conventional life. Reportedly, Konneh was initially arrested for riding a train without a ticket.

Contact the writer at feedback@ibtimes.com.au, or let us know what you think below.