Lawyer claims strip search filmed

Press, 12 July 1985, Page 4

Lawyer claims strip search filmed

PA Auckland A conversation in a courtroom foyer about unmatched underwear has erupted into a battle among Auckland’s legal fraternity. An Auckland barrister, Mr Lorraine Smith, is calling for an independent inquiry into allegations that she was filmed while being strip-searched at the Christchurch Central Police Station and that copies of a videotape of the search are circulating in Auckland. Mr Alexander King, who

opposes Lorraine Smith in a case of aggravated robbery heard in the District Court, at Otahuhu, told her yesterday that he had seen the video.

The strip-search occurred place in May last year at the Christchurch Police Station, where Mrs Smith was interviewing witnesses in the trial of Alistair Barr on charges of robbing a bank in Lumsden, Southland.

Mrs Smith and her senior counsel submitted to the search under protest, after

the police said they could not talk to the witnesses without first being searched. “They said the witnesses might use our watches or jewellery to attempt an escape,” she said. When she returned to the control room to recover her possessions, Mrs Smith noticed a bank of video screens which apparently monitored activity in other rooms. She asked the police sergeant if he had watched her being searched and he smiled and said: “I did not A

see much.” Yesterday however, Mrs Smith said Mr King told her that he had seen a video film of the strip search and at least three other copies were in existence.

Questioned by the “New Zealand Herald,” Mr King said the statement to Mrs Smith had been a hoax and that he had not seen any such video.

"It was part of the banter that goes on between counsel outside the court,” he said.

Mrs Smith remains unconvinced of Mr King’s disclaimer. She says he described details of the search that he could not have known if he had not seen it. “He said that I was not wearing matching underwear,” she said. “I normally do wear matching underwear, but on that day I was not.”

She was “disturbed and disgusted” that the police might have made such a film, and that it could have been copied.