Home detention for ‘rebel’ Spirit of Tasmania drug trafficking mum

An ice-trafficking mother got into drugs and crime after running away from her strict Polish family as a rebellious teenager, a judge says.

Katarzyna Wanda Stadnicka will spend 15 months in home detention after bringing thousands of dollars worth of drugs into Tasmania on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry.

A “REBEL” who ran away from home at age 13 after her family moved from Poland has avoided jail time for bringing drugs into Devonport via the Spirit of Tasmania ferry.

Launceston mother-of-two Katarzyna Wanda Stadnicka, 32, will spend the next 15 months under home detention after pleading guilty to trafficking in August 2017, the Supreme Court in Launceston has heard.

In sentencing, Justice Robert Pearce said police intercepted Stadnicka’s vehicle when she arrived in Devonport, finding 25.6g of a brown paste containing methylamphetamine and pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, 19.6g of ice, $800 in cash, four mobile phones and a tick sheet.

He said the drugs were worth thousands of dollars and that Stadnicka, who now has a six-month-old baby, intended to sell some of them.

“You were born in Poland but migrated to Australia with your family when you were about 10. You were unhappy about the move and it, combined with your strict upbringing, caused you to rebel by running away at age 13,” he said.

“Thereafter you lived independently but regrettably you began to heavily abuse illicit drugs of all types. You resorted to criminal behaviour and associated with persons also involved with drugs and crime.”

Justice Pearce said in 2016 he gave Stadnicka an eight-month suspended sentence for her part in the planned burglary of a Launceston residential and business complex, “stealing items of considerable value and causing much damage”.

He said even though her 2017 drug trafficking was a breach of that suspended sentence, he would not send her to prison as she had not used drugs or reoffended since the crime, had taken steps to rehabilitate, and because jailing her could have a severe impact on her baby.

Justice Pearce added that sentences of actual imprisonment should be currently avoided, unless there was no alternative, to minimise the risk of COVID-19 exposure.