Rhiannon Trinder in Gladstone court for not giving police access to her phone

A young Central Queensland mum has faced court after she refused to give police access to her mobile phone during a raid of her home.

Rhiannon Pauliene Trinder, 22, pleaded guilty in Gladstone Magistrates Court to a charge which related to not giving police access to information stored electronically. Generic image.

A young Central Queensland mum has faced court after she refused to give police access to her mobile phone.

Rhiannon Pauliene Trinder, 22, pleaded guilty in Gladstone Magistrates Court to a charge which related to not giving police access to information stored electronically.

The court heard that on March 1, police executed a search warrant at Trinder’s Kin Kora home.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Merrilyn Hoskins said Trinder did not comply with a police order to access her phone.

“When speaking with police, (Trinder’s) partner said he’d recently had his phone seized and that therefore he was using her phone,” Sgt Hoskins said.

The prosecutor said the reason police wanted to examine Trinder’s phone was “to see if further offences occurred, namely supplying drugs.”

“And (Trinder) declined to provide that access code (to her phone).”

Sgt Hoskins said because Trinder and her boyfriend had both been using the phone, there was a “likelihood” police would find something on it.

“Which was the reason, in my submission, she (Trinder) hadn’t provided the code,” Sgt Hoskins said.

Trinder had no criminal history.

Gladstone Courthouse.

Solicitor Cassandra Ditchfield said this was “a slightly different case” to what the courts normally see.

“This is a situation where, the concern of police was not for my client having been involved in any... activity... but rather the assumption that the boyfriend, whose phone they’d previously seized, was using the phone and that he may therefore have been committing offences,” Ms Ditchfield said.

“Now his phone had only recently been seized, so there would hardly be any significant amount of activity, if there were to be any at all, found on the phone.”

At that point of Ms Ditchfield’s submission, Magistrate Mary Buchanan interjected and said: “She (Trinder) should have just handed it over.”

Ms Ditchfield replied: “Well she, in hindsight she should have.”

The solicitor said Trinder later realised she made an error and she therefore accepted responsibility and entered an early plea of guilty.

Ms Ditchfield said Trinder was a mother of one and she was pregnant with her second child.

“She is predominantly a stay-at-home mum, however she does work casually in her mother’s cleaning business.”

Magistrate Mary Buchanan said this sort of offending “strikes at the heart” of the justice system and she fined Trinder $2000.

No conviction was recorded.

Originally published as Rhiannon Trinder in Gladstone court for not giving police access to her phone