Woodville Pizza Bar worker breaks silence over lockdown scandal

The worker who is being investigated over a lie that triggered SA’s lockdown has broken his silence.

Police outside the Woodville Pizza Bar. Picture: Kelly Barnes/Getty Images

The Spanish pizza worker being investigated by police has broken his silence saying he is “extremely remorseful and deeply sorry” for any role his conduct played in the state’s lockdown. 

His lawyer Scott Jelbert, principal of Camena Legal & Migration, has issued a statement on behalf of his client saying “he did not foresee or intend that things might unfold as they have”.

Mr Jelbert said, since entering hotel quarantine, his client has had limited access to government media releases, public opinion and social media.

However, he has been instructed by his client that some of the information is not “fair” or “accurate” and the worker is concerned he has been all but publicly named.

“My client’s current focus is on co-operating with the authorities and completing quarantine.

He is sincerely concerned about the impact of the lockdown on South Australians,” Mr Jelbert said in a statement.

SA Police has formed a task force to investigate the worker’s allegedly false answers to contact tracers, which have been blamed for triggering South Australia’s lockdown last week.

The man worked as a kitchen-hand at the Stamford Plaza hotel on North Tce and at the Woodville Pizza Bar, where he contracted COVID from one of the Peppers medi-hotel security guards who also worked at the pizza bar.

He told SA Health contact tracers he did not work at the pizza bar and ordered a pizza there, creating false fears about how virulent the Parafield strain of the virus was.