Daniel Kennedy jailed after shopping at Woolies without mask while Covid positive

A young man has been slammed by a magistrate who jailed him for leaving isolation to go shopping at Woolworths despite knowing he was Covid positive.

A man has been jailed after going shopping at a supermarket without a mask while knowing he was Covid positive, with a magistrate labelling his behaviour “selfish” and “thoughtless”.

Daniel Kennedy, 22, was jailed for 21 days and fined $1000 dollars after shopping at the Wollongong CBD Woolworths on September 18, despite being in strict isolation after testing positive to Covid on September 8.

Magistrate Claire Girotto labelled the young man’s behaviour as selfish, and jailed him to send a “short sharp message to the community”.

Daniel Kennedy, 22, was jailed for 21 days. Picture: Facebook

“We are living in a community that’s very scared,” she said.

“At the least this is a thoughtless act and at worst an extremely selfish act, (him saying) ‘I’ve got Covid, I don’t care’,”.

“Who knows how many people have caught Covid because of him not wearing a mask”.

According to documents tendered to the court, Kennedy was confirmed as a positive case on September 8 and directed to self-isolate for 14 days.

However, on Saturday, police spotted Kennedy walking into Woolies without a face mask.

Officers followed him into the store, spotting Kennedy still without a face mask. They approached him and asked for identification, however Kennedy said he didn’t have any on him and offered up fake names and birth dates.

After police told Kennedy they would search him for identification, he said “okay, I lied, I will give you my name”, and provided his details.

Daniel Kennedy went shopping at Woolworths knowing he was Covid positive. Picture: file

He was taken to Wollongong police station where checks revealed that on September 14, police had attended his grandmother’s Dapto home to check up on him, as that was the address registered with NSW Health.

However, he was not there and his grandmother told police she had not seen him for weeks.

The court heard he had been isolating at his mother’s Wollongong home, not his grandmother’s.

On Monday, Kennedy pleaded guilty to failing to comply with a self-isolation direction and not wearing a fitted face covering in a business premises.

His defence lawyer Greg Melrose told the court his client had been “naive about the seriousness of the crime”, and that he only left the house to get food.

“He doesn’t appear to have any overt symptoms, it may be that he did not in fact pose a substantial risk to anyone,” Mr Melrose said.

“It’s not suggested he came particularly close to anybody.”

But police prosecutor Sergeant Dave Weaver strongly refuted the statement, saying it wasn’t for the court to determine whether he posed a risk to anyone or not.

“To be without a mask is utterly disgraceful with what we are going through,” he said.

“Whether he was particularly infectious or not is not up to us, we are not medical experts.

“It’s not for us to guess how infectious he may have been.”

Kennedy, who is still in his 14-day isolation period, will be released from jail on October 11.