Coronavirus: SA women jailed after fleeing quarantine in Perth

The pair, aged 19 and 22, did not have permission to fly to Perth and now face $50,000 fines after their short-lived holiday.

The women escaped quarantine from their Perth hotel.

Two South Australian women who landed in Perth on a flight from Adelaide on Sunday night are in jail after allegedly bolting from hotel quarantine.

The women – one aged 19 and the other aged 22 – had neither applied for or received permission to come to Western Australia before they boarded the flight to Perth, according to WA acting police commissioner Gary Dreibergs.

Acting WA police commissioner Gary Dreibergs.

“They were not returning residents and their sole purpose for travel was to holiday and visit family,” acting commissioner Dreibergs said.

He described the incident as a “very serious matter” and the actions of the two women were “very disappointing”.

The women landed at 8.20pm on Sunday and were escorted to quarantine at the Novotel hotel in Murray Street in the centre of Perth. It was there, according to acting commissioner Dreibergs, that the women ran away and got into a taxi at about 1.30am.

Police were called immediately and the pair was found at a block of units with “associates” shortly before 9am Monday in the suburb of Coolbellup, 15km south of Perth.

They have been charged with failing to comply with an order under WA’s state of emergency pandemic laws and face fines of up to $50,000 each.

“When people do breach quarantine it really does rock the trust of our organisation,” acting commissioner Dreibergs said.

“Unfortunately when we have people like this who do the wrong thing, we have to review our set of circumstances and within, we escalate what we do around managing that environment.”

Acting commissioner Dreibergs said the women had not been tested for COVID but have been deemed by health authorities not to pose a significant health risk. He did not say why.

There are currently eight known cases of coronavirus in South Australia. WA has five active cases.

Another man recently charged with running away from hotel quarantine in Perth is alleged to have used a ladder to escape from his room.