Gold Coast mums in court: Carly Younger, Liz and Rebecca Patterson, Allira Jade Campbell, Sandra Colbert, Rebecca Paige Martin, Melinda Walsh and Eva Malandris
From drug dealing, to menacing behaviour, abusive texts and stealing thousands from an employer, these are some of the Gold Coast’s most notorious mothers.
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From serious drug charges, to menacing behaviour and stealing thousands from an employer, here are seven Gold Coast mum who faced courts for their crimes.
Carly Younger
A Gold Coast mum who works in the disability support sector was jailed for possessing a commercial quantity of methamphetamine, the latest chapter in her sad story of rehabilitation and relapse.
Burleigh Heads mother-of-two Carly Marie Robyn Younger, 39, a disability support worker, pleaded guilty in Brisbane Supreme Court in November to aggravated possession of a Schedule 1 drug and a smoking utensil.
The court heard Younger was busted in a Tallebudgera Valley unit on September 28, 2019.
Inside her red handbag, police discovered a metal cylinder which contained about 63g pure methamphetamine and a glass smoking pipe.
She was charged on October 16, 2019 after attending a police station for an interview.
It was accepted by the Crown the drugs in Younger’s possession did not belong to her, but that she was aware they were for a commercial purpose and that she expected to receive some of them for her troubles.
The court heard this is Younger’s third appearance before the higher courts.
In October 2012, she was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for an operational period of five years, and placed on two years’ probation for supplying a Schedule 1 drug on six occasions and other associated drug offences.
This suspended sentence was extended in July 2017, after she pleaded guilty in Brisbane Supreme Court to aggravated possession of a Schedule 1 drug.
There, she was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for an operational period of three years, and placed on another two years’ probation.
The current offending breached that suspended sentence.
Justice Kerri Mellifont QC sentenced Younger to three years’ imprisonment, with court-ordered release on parole on January 31 next year, after she would have served three months of her sentence.
Justice Mellifont told Younger she had “unresolved trauma” in her life which she must deal with.
She was also placed on three years’ probation.
Liz and Rebecca Patterson
A mother and daughter beat up the partner of a relative – pushing her to the ground and swinging her around the hair – all in front of a uniformed, on-duty police officer.
Liz and Rebecca Patterson left the woman with soft-tissue injuries and cuts on her face.
Liz, 62 and Rebecca, 35, both pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court in December to assault occasioning bodily harm.
Magistrate Kerry Magee sentenced Liz Patterson to nine months’ prison, wholly suspended, and Rebecca Patterson to six months’ prison, wholly suspended.
Also, each was ordered to pay $300 in compensation to the woman.
“You are both very fortunate the injuries were minor given the ferocity of the attack the police officer attests to,” Magistrate Magee said.
The court was told the pair went to a Southport unit complex on March 4 this year after their relative phoned to say he was being beaten up by his partner.
When they arrived and saw police, the Pattersons thought something may have happened to their relative.
They approached the police officer who said he was at the complex for another matter.
The women then spotted the relative’s partner walking down the street with food.
The court was told Liz Patterson, in full view of the police officer, pushed the woman into the wall and both began punching her.
At one point Liz Patterson told the woman: “I’m going to f***ing have you.”
The woman was also grabbed by the hair and swung around.
The court was told Rebecca Patterson was being treated for mental illness while Liz Patterson had recently been diagnosed with a medical condition that left her wheelchair bound.
Allira Jade Campbell
A methamphetamine queenpin dealt up to $57,000 of ice weekly, buried kilos of drugs in her backyard, poured drugs down the sink and tried to stuff $80,000 in her daughter’s bag when arrested, and chased drug debts while incarcerated, a court has heard.
Burleigh Heads woman Allira Jade Campbell, 36, was sentenced in Brisbane Supreme Court in May for 13 offences.
They included trafficking in ice, possessing 750g pure of the drug, supplying GHB six times, attempting to pervert the course of justice, destroying evidence, failing to provide passcodes for mobile phones and possessing a used glass pipe, inter alia.
The court heard Campbell’s period of trafficking occurred between June 14 and December 4, 2019, when she was arrested was following a search warrant of a Robina residence.
Her current period of trafficking commenced just three months after her release on parole, on March 18, 2019, for a previous offence of trafficking ice. For that she was jailed for five years on July 26, 2017.
On that previous occasion, Campbell was dealing to users – this time, however, she had upgraded to supplying other dealers in ounces at a time.
Crown prosecutor Matt Hynes told the court Campbell had 25 customers that could be proven.
When police executed the search warrant in December 2019, they found – consistent with their intelligence – 1kg of substance containing 757g pure methamphetamine buried in her backyard, the court heard, worth between $105,000 and $500,000 depending on how it was sold.
Justice Francis Williams sentenced Campbell to 10 years’ imprisonment.
The sentence means she will be forced to serve 80 per cent of the sentence before she is eligible for parole.
Combined with the time still required to be served for her previous sentence for drug trafficking, activated due to her current offences, Campbell will not be eligible for parole until January 6, 2031.
Sandra Colbert
A mother of three was ordered to pay back the $12,000 she swindled from taxpayers while working at two government agencies.
Sandra Dorne Colbert, 46, received welfare payments for 13 months while working part-time at the Australian Taxation Office and later Centrelink.
She was employed at Centrelink to advise others how to declare payments correctly.
She failed to declare to Centrelink that she was employed and later did not update any change in circumstances after transferring roles.
In January 2020 she pleaded guilty to obtaining financial advantage for one’s self, 14 counts of making a false document and 14 counts of using forged documents.
Colbert was sentenced to nine months’ prison, with immediate release, and was ordered to serve a two-year $800 good behaviour bond.
Rebecca Paige Martin
The 21-year-old mum was worried she would not be able to find a flatmate because she was selling so many drugs from her home, a court was told.
Martin pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court in January 2020 to trafficking cannabis, permitting use of place for drug activities, two counts of possessing dangerous drugs and three counts of supplying dangerous drugs.
She was sentenced to two and a half years in prison with immediate release on parole.
Police searched Martin’s Gold Coast home on September 11, 2018, and found 507g of cannabis in her kitchen, 42 MDMA tablets and $3330 cash in her bedroom.
A court heard Martin sent a text message to a friend while looking for a flatmate and selling up to 500g of cannabis a week, worth about $3000.
“It is just going to be hella’ hard to get someone in because we are pushing drugs from here and not everyone would be okay with that,” she wrote.
Melinda Walsh
A mum launched a vile Twitter campaign against a social worker who looked after her dying father because she was convinced the woman pressured him to change his will.
Melinda Louise Walsh faced Southport Magistrates Court in November 2020 charged with using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.
The 58-year-old pleaded guilty to the charge in September 2020, nearly 18 months after she first faced court.
Walsh was sentenced to 12 months probation and a three-year good behaviour bond.
The court was told Walsh accused the social worker of being responsible for her father changing his will and making Walsh’s estranged brother the sole beneficiary.
The court was told the social worker was investigated by the Office of Health Ombudsman, brought on by a complaint by Walsh, but was cleared of any wrongdoing.
The director for public prosecutions said that was when Walsh started publishing offensive posts about the victim on Twitter.
Walsh accused the victim of corruption, stealing from the elderly and influencing palliative patients to change their will.
The former sales and marketing executive published 113 offensive posts in four months between September 2018 and January 2019, he said.
Magistrate Kerry McGee said the campaign was clearly designed to diminish the victim’s reputation and impact her employment.
In a statement read in court the victim said she had suffered sleepless nights and feelings of anxiety caused by Walsh’s promise to be “relentless (in the) pursuit for justice”.
“I am in absolute fear that if this trial does not work today that she will resume what she has been doing,” she said.
“I have been fearful at times of my life and my family’s life because I’ve felt Melinda Walsh is unstable, incredibly vindictive and has been asking others to share her tweets.”
Defence lawyer Danielle Heable, of Dib & Associates Lawyers, said Walsh has been involved in an ongoing legal battle with her brother over her late parents’ estate.
Eva Malandris
The Gold Coast mother pleaded guilty in October 2020 to giving two teenagers cannabis.
Malandris, 54 at the time of the hearing, pleaded guilty to seven charges in total.
It included two counts of possessing dangerous drugs, two counts of supplying dangerous drugs, two counts of supplying to a minor and one count of possessing dangerous drugs in excess of two grams.
Malandris was sentenced to two years prison with immediate parole.
In September 2019, Malandris was found with 8.92g of methamphetamine and cannabis, a court was told.
A text conversation where she offered to provide 3.5g, or an eight ball, of the drug ice to a person for about $550 was also found on her phone.
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Originally published as Gold Coast mums in court: Carly Younger, Liz and Rebecca Patterson, Allira Jade Campbell, Sandra Colbert, Rebecca Paige Martin, Melinda Walsh and Eva Malandris
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