Mothers settle trespass case over 'distressing' bail checks by NSW Police

NSW Police settles trespass case alleging 'excessive' bail checks on families In short: Two mothers who launched a trespass case against NSW Police alleging excessive bail checks on their sons have reached a confidential settlement. The police watchdog last year urged police to seek court authorisation for uninvited bail checks, but NSW Police maintains its approach is lawful. What's next? One of the mothers continues to pursue a racial discrimination case against police in the federal court. Fast asleep on the lounge one night, Joanne* woke to a stranger's head looking inside her living room. "I will never forget it; I was so afraid," the mother of three recalled. "It means he jumped over my fence to go in my backyard to look in my window, and it's such an invasion of privacy." Over the course of 19 months, Joanne and her children experienced more than 100 visits from NSW Police, who were conducting bail checks on her teenage son. She is one of two mothers who have reached a confidential settlement with police on the eve of trial, after alleging most of the visits were unlawful and amounted to trespass. "Sometimes we'd be eating dinner, and then as soon as the door would knock … we would all get very anxious," she said. Once, her young daughter woke to find torches being shone through her bedroom window and police banging on every window at the front of the house. It left her fearful and struggling at school, Joanne said. "My children, who have never been in any trouble, they have trust issues with the police," she said. "We were all targeted, not only my son … we were all treated like criminals." More than 100 bail checks Sometimes the police visits were "benign", Joanne said, but other times "you'd have six police at your front door". "It was very distressing and I felt very powerless." Joanne's three children are Aboriginal, and her youngest child lives with disability. Her son's bail conditions varied, but for most of the period the court had imposed an "enforcement condition" that allowed police to conduct curfew checks during specified hours and no more than once a day and three times a week. In the final three months, the courts had not imposed any enforcement conditions at all. According to documents Joanne filed in the NSW Supreme Court, police attended her home in western Sydney at least 109 times between October 2021 and May 2023. She alleged 59 of those checks — more than half — happened outside of the conditions allowed by the court, including 25 in the months where there was no authorisation at all. Sometimes police arrived two or three times in a day, she said, or four times in one week or as late as midnight or 1am. "What's the point of a judge giving their conditions if they're not going to be met on both sides?" she said. "If [my son] didn't abide by those bail conditions then he could go back to jail, but the police can just go beyond their scope with no accountability." The mothers' solicitor, Kate Sinclair, a proud Dharug woman from the Justice and Equity Centre, said these bail practices were not unusual in New South Wales. "Courts will tell them they don't have the power and yet they do it anyway," she said. "It really says to me that police think they are a power unto themselves." A police spokesperson told the ABC their officers were acting lawfully when they conducted checks to ensure a person was at home complying with their bail conditions. These checks were "an important tool to keep the people of NSW safe" and a "risk management strategy" allowing suspects to be free while a court process played out, they said. The NSW Bail Act does not explicitly state whether police can carry out a bail check without an enforcement condition from the court. In those situations, police rely on a common law doctrine of "implied licence" which allows officers to walk onto a property and knock on the front door to make enquiries. However, residents still have the right to deny access. In October 2021, Joanne wrote to NSW Police formally revoking access to her property unless they were conducting a bail check during the court-approved days and times. "Police didn't care, they did it anyway," said Ms Sinclair. In 2025, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission recommended NSW Police stop using the doctrine of implied licence to conduct bail checks, calling it "vague, weak and cancellable" and questioning whether it was lawful at all. It also recommended the attorney-general change the Bail Act to clearly state checks cannot be conducted with an enforcement condition. The police spokesperson told the ABC they stood by their submissions to LECC, which argued they had an implied licence to visit a home for "proactive policing" initiatives, unless it was revoked. Kate Sinclair is urging both police and government to abandon the practice. "What happened to Joanne's family wasn't right," she said. "It would have been great to have a court confirm that, but really the police have all the information in front of them to do the right thing and we call on them to do that." The lawsuit also alleged police raided Joanne's home four times using search powers under a firearm prohibition order, without reasonable grounds to suspect her son had any guns. "This is not a pat-down search, this is a full-on raid," Ms Sinclair said, adding that police never found weapons. "It's 10 police officers knocking on the front door, banging on the front door, yelling 'firearms prohibition order' and then storming your house. "It's terrifying for [Joanne], and it's terrifying for her children, who have done nothing wrong." 'Over policing of Aboriginal communities' Megan* also settled with NSW Police after her family faced more than 150 police checks between 2021 and 2023 without enforcement conditions in place. She is still pursuing a racial discrimination case in the federal court, arguing her boys — aged only 11 and 13 years old at the time — were targeted for excessive checks because they were Aboriginal. Forty per cent of those checks occurred between 1am and 4am, Ms Sinclair said. "Police use every power they have to target someone," she said. "These young people were being stopped and searched … their mum's car was getting pulled over. "What this case will do is point to evidence of over-policing of Aboriginal communities as the indicator of racial discrimination." A report commissioned by JEC, based on Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data, found Aboriginal youth experienced 42 per cent more bail checks on average than non-Aboriginal youth in the first 30 days of their release. They were 11 per cent more likely to be checked by police than non-Aboriginal young people. If the case succeeds, it will set a precedent as the first time an Australian court has found racial discrimination based on statistical evidence. "We hope [there will be] policy changes, systemic changes, and a review of the New South Wales police use of their powers," Ms Sinclair said. "There's no shortage of things police could be doing to improve how they police young people and how they police Aboriginal communities." A Department of Communities and Justice spokesperson said the application of the law to police procedures such as bail checks was a matter for the courts. * Pseudonyms have been used for Joanne and Megan for legal reasons.