Injured mum tells her side of vicious online chat group fight
A woman at the centre of a mothers’ chat group argument about coronavirus that turned violent has revealed it was all about whether a member coming back from China should have stayed in quarantine. READ HER ACCOUNT
NSW
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Mother-of-one Maggie said she has had trouble sleeping after another member of the northern beaches social media group, which has more than 200 members, came to her home on Tuesday night.
“I thought she just wanted a chat.”
But Maggie said the mother was aggressive from the start.
“She said ‘I’ll pull your mouth off’, and I said, ‘I don’t want to waste my time with you’ — then she slapped me,” she said.
Maggie said she defended herself.
“We pulled each other’s hair and fell to the floor,” she said.
Maggie said she was lying on the floor when the mother pulled her gold necklace, causing it to snap, and cut the back of her neck in the process.
She said the wild scene started after a heated discussion in the local mothers’ group — which has operated for more than five years — about whether or not a person arriving in Sydney from China should stay in quarantine for 14 days.
Maggie said she criticised one woman who had recently returned from China and who had told the group not to worry about the quarantine rules.
Another woman took offence to her opinion before turning up at Maggie’s Brookvale home after her address was posted in the group.
“I didn’t want her coming over,” she said.
“My husband and six-year-old boy are here. But someone on the group said: ‘They should sort it out off here (the chatroom) and at a local park or Maggie’s house’.”
Both women were hospitalised after the altercation, which took place outside Maggie’s home about 8pm.
Two other women from the mothers’ group tried to break up the pair before the police were called.
One of them told The Saturday Telegraph that the coronavirus was causing fear and segregation in their friendship group.
“It’s human nature. Everyone is scared because it’s so new.”
A personal violence order has been taken out on Maggie’s behalf against the other woman.
Originally published as Injured mum tells her side of vicious online chat group fight