New South Wales Consolidated Acts

LAW ENFORCEMENT (POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES) ACT 2002 - SECT 23A

23A Ancillary power to search persons

(1) In conducting a search of a person under section 23, a police officer may, if the police officer suspects on reasonable grounds that a thing of a kind referred to in section 23 (1) or (2) is concealed in the person’s mouth or hair, request the person:

(a) to open his or her mouth, or

(b) to shake, or otherwise move, his or her hair.

(2) Subsection (1) does not authorise a police officer to forcibly open a person’s mouth.

(3) A person must not, without reasonable excuse, fail or refuse to comply with a request made by a police officer in accordance with this section and section 201.

Maximum penalty: 5 penalty units.