Insta famous PT, Matthew Charles Fox, slammed his Covid defiance behaviour in ‘off-centre’ deal with police
An Instagram famous personal trainer who was charged for an act Covid defiance has told his followers not to be “silly” like he was in a public statement denouncing his behaviour.
Police & Courts
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A Instagram famous Coast personal trainer has publicly denounced his act of Covid defiance after a quirky deal meant his contrition saved him from court action.
Matthew Charles Fox, 34, was charged with stealing after he filmed himself putting Covid-19 signage from a Sunrise playground in a bin on August 4.
Mr Fox, who has a social media following of 386,000 Instagram followers and 20,000 YouTube subscribers to his home workout videos, was due to be sentenced in Noosa Magistrates Court on Tuesday but was instead given an adult caution by police.
Magistrate Graham Hillan dismissed the charges.
Sunshine Coast Police Prosecution Officer-in-Charge senior sergeant David Bradley said police invited Mr Fox to publicly retract and denounce his behaviour online in exchange for a caution.
Senior Sergeant Bradley said police saw an opportunity to share the importance of public health orders with a larger audience when they decided to use the “off-centre” approach.
“He was someone we were going to throw the book at, but when we realised, he had 400-odd thousand followers on Instagram we came up with a different approach,” he said.
“It’s actually part of a combined strategy to try and influence more people than we possibly could with one prosecution.”
The Noosa personal trainer was involved in discussions with police that pointed out how irresponsible and dangerous his actions were to public health.
“The best message for people who are radicalising and showing this stupid behaviour is to have someone who has done it to reflect on what they have done and send a message on our behalf, which is what we are using him to do,” Senior Sergeant Bradley said.
Senior Sergeant Bradley said the matter had a positive outcome.
“At the end of the day it’s about securing behaviour change and rehabilitation and if we can do that without putting people before the court well that’s an option,” he said.
“This is one of those occasions where the charges were well-made out, he shouldn’t have done what he did, but he now acknowledges that and now hopefully 400,000 thousand people are also seeing that he acknowledges that.”
Mr Fox never formally entered a plea to the stealing charge but accepted fault during the cautioning process and in his Instagram post, saying he acted out of frustration.
He said being charged with stealing caused him a great deal of emotional distress and cost him a lot of money.
“I now have a greater understanding of the public health concerns that resulted in the closure of playgrounds at the time that I removed the sign; and of the implications of “protesting“ in the way I did,” he wrote.
“I urge you not to allow your frustration with the present situation to boil over to the point that you do something silly and end up in trouble like I did.”
The Noosa personal trainer also paid the costs associated with having the signs replaced.
Mr Fox has been contacted for comment.
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