Man who fled hotel quarantine refuses to pay for stay

A man who made a freedom dash from a Melbourne quarantine hotel says he will refuse to fork out for his two-week stay or pay any fines.

A man who tried to escape from a Melbourne quarantine hotel says he will contest any fines he gets and will refuse to pay for his two-week stay.

John-Lee Berridge, 24, made a dash for freedom on Boxing Day when he left his room at the Tullamarine Holiday Inn and made it to the carpark, where he was halted by police.

Mr Berridge, an interior designer who has spent the past year living in Maroubra, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, argued he was being held in the hotel unnecessarily.

He said he had filled out the correct paperwork for his travel permit and flew into Avalon Airport at 7pm last Monday, before the midnight deadline for Victorians returning from NSW.

John-Lee Berridge.

He said health officials had been reviewing his case and he claimed they said he would be released by Christmas Day.

When that didn’t eventuate Mr Berridge hatched the plan to escape. “Being misinformed built my anxiety up, it just built up to too much, that’s the reason why I decided to leave,” he said. “It just built up to too much I couldn’t take it any more. Once I get to that stage I can’t control myself.”

He said from his seventh-floor room he walked past five guards and pushed one off that tried to detain him before police caught him and led him back to his room.

He was then transferred to the Novotel Melbourne South Wharf, which he was told was for his own health and safety.

Mr Berridge said he didn’t regret his actions and felt like he had to flee because he had been “mistreated”.

“I was given false hope every single day,” he said. “It all came from being mistreated, misled, being told I was getting out the next day, and that dragged on for five days, where from the start they could have just told me ‘your exemption is not going to be accepted’.”

John-Lee Berridge tried to escape from hotel quarantine at the Tullamarine Holiday Inn on Boxing Day.

Mr Berridge faces a $19,000 fine for the breach and $3000 for the hotel quarantine cost. “There’s no way I’m paying it, I’ll take that to court as well because I shouldn’t have been in quarantine at the start.”

Victoria Police said in a statement it is working with COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria to investigate the incident.

Victoria’s Roads Minister Jaala Pulford said on Sunday that the incident was an example of why Victorians could have confidence in the rebooted hotel quarantine arrangements. “This particular incident is still being investigated, but that person is now back where they need to be and the system has worked as it should,” she said.

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