Covidiots: Long rollcall of people fined or charged for flouting health laws | list
They range from multi-millionaires in superyachts to hoons, real estate agents and down-on-their-luck druggies. They all have one thing in common — they’re Covidiots who have flouted public health laws.
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They range from a millionaire and his mates who wanted to watch a rugby Test to a bloke who spat at Centrelink staff, a man who attended an illegal hoon event, a druggie and otherwise respectable real estate agents.
The list of Covidiots who have broken our quarantine, border, public health or lockdown laws is as varied as it is long.
We take a look at some of the more notable cases of people fined or charged since the first lockdown in Queensland in March last year, right up to people offending as recently as this week.
NO CONVICTIONS
SARAH MAGGIE CANTLE
The New Farm real estate agent pleaded guilty in April to failing to comply with a COVID-19 public health direction after illegally crossing the Queensland border from a hotspot last year.
Magistrate Robbie Davies said Cantle had crossed the border at an unknown date between August 9 and 16.
“By attempting to cross the border, and crossing the border, you put other people at risk,” he said.
Cantle and her partner were out of the state when Queensland border directions changed, her defence lawyer David Neuendorf said.
“They were at a place that had no phone reception, they weren’t on social media, it came as a great shock to them when they attended the border,” he said.
Cantle was fined $3500 with no criminal conviction recorded.
IVO JANUSZ KORNEL
In February Kornel, another New Farm real estate agent, pleaded guilty to failing to comply with a COVID public health direction after unlawfully entered Queensland from a COVID hotspot, despite twice being refused entry.
He did not initially quarantine and was found showing a home days later.
Kornel, 39, and his partner, both Queensland residents, attempted to enter the state at the Tugun checkpoint on August 9 but were refused entry because they didn’t have a valid pass.
Kornel advised they had been staying in Huonbook, about 30km northwest of Byron Bay, a suburb in the border bubble but police told them they could not enter.
The couple returned 30 minutes later to argue their case but again were refused entry.
Prosecutor Courtney Rantala told the court that on August 15 officers were notified Kornel would be showing homes as a real estate agent on that day.
Police found him outside a New Farm property.
Deputy Chief Magistrate Janelle Brassington said it was “quite deliberate non compliance”.
She fined him $5000. No conviction was recorded.
SAMUEL FENUNUTI, EARNEST LOTOMAU, TITHING FAAGASEJAN
Three Logan men were busted after returning to Queensland from COVID-ravaged Melbourne at the height of the pandemic, a court heard in February.
Samuel Tumua Fenunuti, 29, from Slacks Creek, Tithing Keresoma Faagase, 25, from Logan and Earnest Tumano Lotomau, 23, from Waterford, faced Coolangatta Magistrates Court where they were given good behaviour bonds.
They pleaded guilty to failing to comply with a public health directive after returning to Queensland from Melbourne in August last year.
Defence lawyer Thomas Lane-Porter said the men had filled in border applications but had been confused by the escalating crisis in Melbourne, believing their suburbs were outside declared COVID hot spots.
After returning to Queensland together from stints working in Melbourne’s wharves and discovering the whole city was a declared hot spot, they alerted authorities and were escorted by police to quarantine hotels in Brisbane.
Magistrate Kerry Magee said there was ‘the absence of an intention to deceive …’’ and agreed the offending was at the lower end of the scale.
No convictions were recorded.
DAVID WU
The Brisbane karaoke bar owner, whose company was fined for failing to collect proper contract tracing information, had the penalty increased in June after taking the matter to court.
Upper Mount Gravatt’s Cloud 8 Karaoke was fined $6672 in August last year after police found many patrons were not entering their details on the venue’s electronic Covid register.
The court heard the venue had been given a warning notice in June by the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation.
Police returned in August, 2020 to find the club was still not following the rules.
Mr Wu said police had visited his venue, which has previously had its liquor licence suspended, 23 times since it opened in December 2019. He said he was being victimised.
A Holland Park Magistrate disagreed and was scathing of the venue’s lack of understanding of Covid directions, given a warning had already been issued.
The company was found guilty and ordered to pay an increased fine of $7100 with no conviction recorded.
JEREMY YOUNG
Last month the Atomos audio visual company tycoon made national headlines for making a false border application pass after fleeing Covid-ravaged Sydney in his superyacht to watch a rugby Test in Brisbane.
Young was one of the four people on board the 34m Dreamtime which arrived on the Gold Coast direct from Sydney’s escalating Covid crisis.
All four travellers were fined more than $4000 and dragged into quarantine hotels, but not before attending the rugby Test between the Wallabies and France at Suncorp Stadium with more than 17,000 other spectators.
Mr Young is CEO of the ASX-listed Atomos audio visual company, based in Melbourne.
Dreamtime costs almost $20,000 a day to charter.
The men filled in border declarations stating they had not been in a Covid hot spot.
GREG NUMA
The skipper of a luxury superyacht, he found himself at the centre of a COVID quarantine scandal on the Gold Coast last year which saw him fined $4003.
The 30m yacht carrying Melbourne millionaire Mark Simonds and his family docked at Gold Coast City Marina at Coomera after a 15-day voyage from Sydney.
Mr Simonds and the other six people on board were initially granted exemptions from mandatory hotel quarantine but these were later revoked.
A police investigation was launched as the Simonds party was ordered into quarantine at the QT Hotel in Surfers Paradise.
A Southport court heard Numa sent multiple emails to maritime authorities lying about disembarking from the ship as it sailed from Victorian waters into Queensland.
The former celebrity manager, 64, pleaded guilty to one count of making a false declaration to an emergency officer.
Numa, whose high-flying former clientele includes TV host Rex Hunt and former AFL player and TV personality Sam Newman, dodged a conviction for his flagrant border breach.
The luxury 30m vessel costs up to $1950 an hour to hire.
DIANA LASU, OLIVIA MURANGA, HAJA TIMBO
The trio also made national headlines last year, with claims by some commentators that they had been unfairly publicly shamed for their actions despite causing massive disruption and expense to the community.
Haja Uma Timbo, 21, and Diana Lasu, 21, pleaded guilty in March to failing to comply with a direction to declare being in a COVID hotspot when applying for a border pass at Brisbane Airport last year.
Charges of one count of fraud and producing false or misleading documents were withdrawn by the prosecution in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
Deputy Chief Magistrate Janelle Brassington sentenced Timbo and Lasu to 80 hours of community service.
Police had sought community service, convictions and the maximum fine of over $13,000.
The magistrate did not record a conviction for Timbo.
In handing down the sentence. Ms Brassington said she lowered the penalty due to the extra-curial punishment endured by Timbo by way of “racist, threatening” messages.
The court heard Timbo flew to Brisbane from Melbourne on July 22 after spending four nights in the southern capital where she attended a party.
One of her friends who she stayed with in Melbourne tested positive for COVID on July 22 after returning to Queensland the day before, the court heard.
On July 3 all of Victoria was declared a COVID hotspot.
The Court head Timbo went online to secure a border pass to return to Queensland, failing to declare that she had been in a COVID hotspot within the last 14 days which meant she bypassed mandatory quarantine.
Police prosecutor Sgt Lisa Pye said when two of Timbo’s travel companions contracted COVID this became known as the case one and case two Logan cluster.
A police prosecutor told the court the cost of the investigation into the cluster was significant, with the increase in testing alone costing tens of thousands of dollars.
Ms Brassington regarded it as an aggravating factor that both Lasu and Timbo had received two COVID related fines each in Melbourne at the party.
She said Lasu had placed others at risk.
“People have been asked to do very difficult things. They’ve been asked to give up their livelihood…. so the community expects the courts to denounce people who don’t comply simply for their own convenience,” she said.
In January police dropped a fraud charge against Muranga.
Magistrate Sue Ganasan sentenced her to 40 hours of community service in April and also did not record a conviction.
GEORGE THOMPSON
The Sydney man was fined almost $10,000 last month for flouting a number of Covid-19 restrictions after his illegal entry into Queensland.
His excuse? He just “wanted to get out” of his locked down city.
Thompson, 26, was fined after he flew from Sydney to Ballina airport, despite being deemed a close contact of a confirmed case by NSW Health.
He was picked up by his partner who brought him back into Brisbane.
The pair spent a number of days in southeast Queensland, allegedly providing false check-in information, before Ms Gray tested positive to Covid-19.
After allegedly failing to co-operate with police, she eventually disclosed how she had contracted the virus.
Thompson was placed into hotel quarantine, where police say he repeatedly opened the door to his room and verbally abused staff. As a result, he was fined almost $10,000.
DALASSA RITTIA PAU
There have been numerous hotel quarantine escape around the country, with one of the most recent in Queensland this young Cairns woman.
She scaled two balconies last month to escape hotel quarantine and visit her mum.
The escapade saw her slapped with a $2500 fine and thrown back into quarantine.
She was found at a unit in Cairns.
Pau appeared in the Cairns Magistrates Court on Tuesday morning and pleaded guilty to failing to comply with Covid-19 public health direction, unregulated high risk activities and wilful damage.
Police had alleged she had been staying on the fourth floor when she scaled two balconies and damaged a door during her escape.
JAMES NECH
The 28-year-old acted in an “arrogant and dangerous” way by sneaking into Queensland after being refused entry into the state three times, Brisbane Magistrates Court heard last year.
Nech admitted failing to comply with a COVID-19 direction after he was arrested with his partner and two children at his house in Indooroopilly.
Four days earlier, he was refused entry into Queensland from NSW three times, receiving a $4003 fine on his last attempt.
The court heard Nech told police he had walked over the border, but would not say how he got home.
Magistrate Andrew Moloney ordered Nech to do 200 hours of unpaid community service.
CONVICTED
NARJIA CATHERINE RACHEL MURPHY
The young Sunshine Coast woman burst into tears when she thought she was going back to prison for committing 13 offences, including breaching a COVID public health direction.
Murphy, 25, from Maroochydore, pleaded guilty to 13 charges including six counts of breach of bail, two counts of possession of dangerous drugs and driving with a drug present between June 2018 and April this year.
The most serious of the offences was the breach of the COVID public health direction on April 16, 2020 at Slacks Creek, when Murphy entered a public place for a non-essential purpose.
Murphy was sentenced to six months’ probation and fined $1300.
Convictions were recorded.
JOHN ROBIN GOYMOUR
The delivery driver turned up with 200 other people to a notorious Rochedale carpark hoon event during lockdown last year, earning him a $1400 fine.
He pleaded guilty to one charge of failing to comply with a COVID-19 public health direction.
“You can now see the foolishness of this act,’’ Magistrate Sue Ganasan told Goymour.
However, she took into account his guilty plea and very minor, dated criminal history which did not include similar offences.
She convicted Goymour, who was supported in court by his parents, and “rounded up’’ the fine to $1400.
At the time, police blasted the attendees’ “blatant disregard” for life.
ZACHARY ELIAS SPENCER
The 22-year-old spat towards Centrelink staff and threatened to stomp on his dog’s head during a “rage” at Nambour Centrelink, Maroochydore Magistrates Court heard.
He was placed on probation in February for 12 months for his outburst on December 8 last year.
Police prosecutor Lee Allan said Spencer, from Nambour, threatened to stab people and go to jail.
“He’s threatened to stomp on the head of his dog Little Dot,” Snr-Constable Allan said.
He said Spencer “flew into a fit of rage” and approached a security guard.
“He spat on the floor in the direction of the staff member, two times on the carpet,” Sen-Constable Allan said.
“Clearly acting in a manner which would likely cause apprehension or fear of being exposed to COVID-19.”
Spencer pleaded guilty to four charges including failing to comply with a COVID-19 public health direction. Convictions were recorded.
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