More than one person lied at Woodville Pizza, which led to SA lockdown, says Police Commissioner
More than 400 hours of CCTV taken from the Peppers medi-hotel has been examined in the police investigation into mistruths that led to the SA lockdown.
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Police have examined more than 400 hours of CCTV in their investigation into the Woodville Pizza Bar worker who sparked the SA lockdown.
Assistant SA Police Commissioner Peter Harvey said Taskforce Protect had used dozens of detectives and officers over the weekend to watch the CCTV from the Peppers medi-hotel, which he called an “arduous task”.
He said a laptop, mobile phones and a hard drive linked to the “person of interest” had been seized and were being analysed.
That man, a 36-year-old, has been interviewed by detectives while in quarantine and has been “co-operative”.
Mr Harvey said police wanted to interview two other people “related to the pizza shop” who were seeking legal advice.
“The CCTV has two purposes. It’s mainly for contact tracing but it provides an opportunity to see what happened at the hotel from a criminal side,” he said.
Mr Harvey said he would not comment about drug links and said he was aware of comments on social media. He also stated he had not said either way if the man had lied.
“I deal in facts, not in rumour and innuendo,” he said.
Mr Harvey said the taskforce had been formed to “look at acts or omissions that may or may have not amounted to a lie that may have then influenced decisions made in this state”.
“There is no presumption of guilt. We’re looking at all the facts and legislation … based on that very fair and honest assessment we’ll see if there’s a charge to be laid.
“We will see if there is charges to be laid – if we discover other matters, I won’t comment, that has nothing to do with this inquiry.
“If there is any offence under any act of which the elements are lying, omitting or providing false advice it’ll be looked at. It’s not as simple as, you lied, you’re in trouble.”
Asked why the taskforce was examining CCTV at Peppers, when the man at the centre of the probe worked at the Stamford Hotel and the Woodville Pizza Bar – and if that person was at the Peppers medi-hotel – Mr Harvey said he was not prepared to disclosed that.
“Four hundreds hours shows everything that’s happened, there’s a lot of movement, frame-by-frame, working out what that means, working out who’s who.
“That’s to see if at any time the person we’re looking at may or may not have been there – that might feed into our inquiry – it might be nothing, that’s why we’re looking
“There’s a lot of emotion and desire for something to happen, but it’ll be done carefully and clinically. There may not be a case.
”That’s what the investigators are looking at, at the moment, we may look further … at the Stamford. We are looking everywhere.”
Meanwhile, it appeared more than one person employed by the pizza shop at the centre of South Australia’s lockdown was untruthful with contact tracers, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens told FIVEaa.
“What I can say is I think it’s reasonable to assume that if we had a person working in the facility who wasn't truthful to us about their employment arrangements, that there are other people that have been less than truthful with us,” Mr Stevens said.
“Otherwise we would have been able to pick up the situation then more quickly.
“This is more than just one person’s actions, I think.”
A 36-year-old Spanish national who tested positive to coronavirus as part of the Parafield Cluster told SA Health’s interviewing taskforce he became infected after picking up a takeaway pizza from Woodville Pizza Bar.
Later interviews discovered the man worked at Woodville Pizza Bar, and was in close contact with a positive case who also worked in a medi-hotel as a security guard as his second job.
Electronic devices have been seized from the man who lied to authorities.
“We have seized some electronic devices from that person and they are being analysed as well.”
Taskforce Protect, which is made up of 20 detectives, is investigating the misleading information that led to the state’s three-day lockdown last week, Mr Stevens said.
“We have Taskforce Protect which is investigating the circumstances around Woodville Pizza Shop, and we have another dedicated crew of investigators which make up, in addition to detectives we have digital forensic experts, intelligence officers, and analysts supporting the contact tracing more broadly.”
The shutdown and community transmission has prompted questions as to whether people working in medi-hotels should be allowed to have other jobs.
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