Canberra Uni student Miles Dorian Whitty found with radioactive material in Masterfoods spice jar
A Canberra Uni student has faced court after emergency services had to evacuate an entire dorm after radioactive material was found in his room.
Canberra Star
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A University of Canberra student science student had unregulated radioactive material stashed in a Masterfoods spice jar in his dorm room, a court has heard.
Miles Dorian Whitty, 20, fronted the ACT Magistrates Court last week charged with possessing a regulated radiation source, having pleaded guilty late last year.
Whitty was in 2018 enrolled in a Bachelor of Science and was living in room 405 of Cooper Lodge, a dorm on the university’s campus at Bruce.
The 296-apartment, privately operated dorm is home to hundreds of students.
The courts have previously heard Whitty rang an ambulance on the afternoon of October 29 that year complaining he was feeling woozy after he dropped a beaker of what he said was cyanide.
The call prompted the evacuation of the dormitory and the callout of a massive contingent of firefighters and police, who at the time said there appeared to have been an explosion in the then-19-year-old’s room.
Witty, who has previously been assessed for mental health issues, was last week handed a non-conviction, and no penalty, over his possession of a chunk of Americium 241, a regulated radioactive material.
The substance was stashed inside a “Masterfoods brand spice jar with a label depicting a radioactive symbol”, court documents show.
“The label had a handwritten symbol for Americium.”
The documents do not state which type of Masterfoods spice jar the container was.
The material had to be sent to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation in Lucas Heights, Sydney, for testing, which confirmed the substance in the jar was the same radioactive substance stated on the hand-written label.
The substance is illegal to possess without registration and licensing, except if it is sealed inside a smoke detector, its most commonplace use.
The substance is highly toxic and radioactive, and exposure to it poses a risk of testicular and ovarian cancer.