Daily Telegraph’s year in review 2021: A year of masks, misery and lockdowns
It was the year of Covid challenges, China cover-ups, masks, misery and months of lockdown. Thank goodness for the cricket and for the miracle of little Cleo.
NSW
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It was the year of Covid challenges, China cover-ups, masks, misery and months of lockdown. WFH became the acronym of the year and hermit the new lifestyle imposed on the nation.
Families were torn apart as premiers became border bandits and while the words of the national anthem were changed from “For we are young and free” to “For we are one and free”, we were anything but.
Thank goodness for the cricket and that wicket off the first ball. And for the miracle of little Cleo.
Here is a snapshot of the year that was:
JANUARY
The New Year blew in with mandatory QR codes for hairdressers and hospitality venues and face masks across the board as all singing, even in church, ended.
After the drought and rains, a stomach-churning plague of mice tore through rural NSW turning hay bales to mush and running across beds even as people slept in them.
FEBRUARY
The nation began to inject its way out of the Covid pandemic with the first doses of Pfizer vaccine administered as the wrongly-maligned AstraZenica vaccine was approved for use.
Canberra staffer Brittany Higgins rocked Australian politics when she bravely spoke out about allegedly being raped by a colleague in then-defence minister Linda Reynold’s ministerial office in Parliament House.
MARCH
The mystery disappearance of eastern suburbs conwoman Melissa Caddick took an eerie turn when The Daily Telegraph crime editor Mark Morri revealed her decomposing foot as found in one of her expensive Asics shoes on Bournda Beach in the NSW south coast — and police did not discount she had cut her foot off herself.
In the midst of sexual misconduct allegations enveloping Parliament House, federal Attorney-General Christian Porter outed himself as the person named in media allegations as the minister who allegedly raped a 17-year-old girl in 1988.
She committed suicide in 2020 and police said there was insufficient evidence to launch a prosecution.
Porter vehemently denied the claim and sued ABC’s Four Corner for defamation which was later settled out of court.
Turf king Damion Flower’s double life was revealed when he pleaded guilty to being one of the country’s biggest cocaine smugglers, using friendly corrupt Sydney Airport baggage handler John Mafiti to assist him.
The former owner of champion racer Snitzel, Flower was jailed, bail refused, to await sentence next year.
APRIL
Fashion royalty Carla Zampatti, hailed as the Italian Chanel, died aged 78 after being knocked unconscious by a fall. The designer famous for making women from all walks of life look and feel fabulous was farewelled at one of the year’s best-dressed funerals. She was granted a state funeral at St Mary’s Cathedral.
From bushfires to floods … a 1-in-100-year weather storm swallowed the state’s east as flooding swamped regional communities, destroying homes and cutting towns in half.
Australia joined the international rescue mission in the hunt for Indonesian submarine KRI Nanggala 402 which suffered an electrical fault and sank in the Lombok Strait north of Bali but it was too late to save the 53 crew on board.
MAY
The former test cricketer Stuart MacGill hit the headlines when he was allegedly kidnapped from a North Sydney street, driven to a remote property at Bringelly where he was held captive and beaten before being dumped at Belmore.
Police allege he was the innocent party and was snatched after being held responsible for a friend who was accused of stealing 2kg of cocaine from a drug syndicate.
A number of people are currently before the courts.
Prosecutors drop charges against St George Illawarra player Jack de Belin and his friend Calan Sinclair after they were found not guilty of one of six charges involving the alleged sexual assault of a woman in Wollongong.
The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the five other charges in the second hung jury for the pair.
Both men maintained their innocence and the DPP decided not to press ahead with a third trial.
JUNE
The Covid proverbial hit the fan after a Bondi limousine driver became patient zero when he failed to follow the proper precautions when picking up a FedEx flight crew from flight FX77 at Sydney Airport.
Within days the Delta variant spread like wildfire after the driver unknowingly took the virus to Westfield Bondi Junction among other shops and cafes.
His wife also tested positive for the Delta stain.
A partygoer infected his father who took the virus back to Melbourne and the nightmare lockdowns began, crippling Sydney and Melbourne, shutting down borders across the country while devastating families forced to live apart.
JULY
World No. 1 women's tennis player Ash Barty won her first Wimbledon ladies' singles title, 41 years after her hero and fellow Indigenous player Evonne Goolagong Cawley lifted the prized trophy. Barty defeated Karolina Pliskova in three sets.
Former Labor ministers Eddie Obeid, 77, and Ian Macdonald, 72, and Obeid’s son Moses, 51, were sensationally convicted in the NSW Supreme Court of conspiring to create a mining lease over the OBeid’ Bylong Valley farm which eventually led to a $30 million windfall for the family. They were all granted bail before being jailed later in the year.
AUGUST
By the time the Tokyo Olympics ended on August 8, Australia had scored a total of 46 medals including 17 gold, putting it in sixth place on the medal table.
One of the more notable medals was Ariarne Titmus’s gold in the 400m freestyle against swimming titan Katie Ledecky, which sent her coach Dean Boxall into overdrive as he grabbed a railing around the pool, appearing he was “humping” it.
Acclaimed neurosurgeon Charlie Teo agrees to have his practice overseen by the NSW Medical Council after complaints from other surgeons about his last-chance operations on patients with “inoperable” conditions. Teo has denied any wrongdoing.
SEPTEMBER
Australia angered the French by cancelling its overdue and overbudget Attack-class diesel submarine construction deal with France in favour if the AUKUS security alliance with the US and UK which comes with a fresh deal for nuclear-powered submarines.
The Daily Telegraph revealed that police have a new person of interest in the 2014 disappearance of little William Tyyrell – his foster mother.
The foster mother was with William and his foster nana when he was last seen alive playing at the foster nana’s house in Kendall.
No charges have been laid and the foster mother maintains she had nothing to do with William’s disappearance.
One of the state’s most notorious criminals, the murderer, rapist, heroin dealer and thug Arthur Stanley “Neddy” Smith, died of natural causes in Long Bay Jail where he was serving a life sentence.
In a miracle in the bush, little AJ Elfalak was found alive near a creek on his family’s property at Putty in the Hunter Valley after a frantic four-day search.
As he clung to his mum after being spotted by a police helicopter, his mum said: “My AJ, my AJ, look here at mummy”.
OCTOBER
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian resigned after the Independent Commission Against Corruption questioned whether her secret boyfriend, disgraced MP for Wagga Wagga Daryl Macguire, received any special treatment for himself and his electorate.
ICAC’s findings are still pending. She moved onwards and upwards to new beau, barrister Arthur Moses SC.
Freedom returned after NSW hit its 80 per cent target of 80 per cent of the state double-vaccinated, schools reopened and intrastate travel was allowed.
Remorseless rapist Mohammed Skaf was released from jail to a public outcry.
He had spent almost 21 years behind bars after helping his brother Bilal lead the series of atrocious rapes in 2000 on four women including one who was sexually assaulted 40 times by at least 14 men over a six-hour period at a toilet block in Sydney’s southwest.
NOVEMBER
The nation breathed a sigh of relief when police entered a housing commission home in Carnarvon in the far-flung north west of Western Australia and asked the little girl there her name. “My name is Cleo,” she replied.
It was the heartwarming end to an 18-day drama since four-year-old Cleo Smith was snatched from her family’s tent while camping at the isolated nearby Blowholes campsite.
A local, Terence Darrell Kelly, has been charged with abducting her and keeping her in his house.
DECEMBER
Pace bowler Mitchell Starc bowled out England opener Rory Burns with the first ball of the Ashes Test at the Gabba, silencing the Barmy Army and setting the scene for one of sports’ most enduring feuds between the Poms and the Aussies.
There were heartbreaking scenes when six young schoolfriends died after a gust of wind lifted a jumping castle 10 metres in the air at Hillcrest Primary School in Devonport, Tasmania.
Then Indigenous bowler Scott Boland helped seal a smashing Ashes victory with a scintillating 6-7 rout of England on day three of the third Test at the MCG.
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