Covid 19 coronavirus: woman sentenced to 14 days in jail for escaping from an isolation center

By Anneke Smith of RNZ

A grieving mother who led her children to escape from an isolation facility in Hamilton to attend their father’s tangi has been jailed for 14 days.

The 37-year-old woman and her 18-year-old daughter were sentenced by Judge Noel Sainsbury in Auckland District Court on Thursday afternoon.

The couple and two children, ages 17 and 12, fled the Distinction Hotel in Te Rapa on July 24 after flying in from Brisbane.

They had traveled to New Zealand, arriving on July 20, to attend the father’s tangi after he died suddenly and unexpectedly.

They were located shortly thereafter and jointly charged with intentionally failing to comply with the orders of the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act of 2020.

The 12-year-old boy was not charged.

Having pleaded guilty to the charge in July, the mother and her teenage daughter presented their respective cases at sentencing Thursday afternoon.

The court heard that the family tried to legally attend the tangi, but their request for compassionate exemption was rejected, as was an alternative arrangement for the father’s body to be brought to Hamilton.

“[This woman] He couldn’t believe the situation wasn’t exceptional enough; so that the children could go to their father’s funeral. His children were the most important thing to him.

“The defendant’s motivation was to give closure to her children and, desperate, when it seemed that their time was running out, she made the decision to escape,” the mother’s lawyer, Joseph Hamblett, told the court.

The police prosecutor said that while he was sympathetic to the situation of women, reporting and deterring such crime had to be front and center in cases of escape from isolation.

Judge Sainsbury said there was an element of selfishness in the offense of the woman; saying that putting himself before the protection of the community “did not agree with tikanga”.

The judge said New Zealand only had to look to Victoria to see the importance of adhering to Covid-19 restrictions, including adherence to quarantine periods, in the face of personal difficulties.

She accepted that the pain had likely clouded the woman’s judgment and her negative tests gave her a false sense of security at the time.

However, he ended up with a 14-day prison sentence for the charge; a result that caused shock and emotion in her daughter and other followers in the public gallery.

A man sitting at the back of the court insisted that he could pay a fine, claiming “she has five children”, before saying “that is embarrassing” when he left the court.

The woman cried and hugged her daughter and other supporters before being taken to the cells where she would be transported to prison.

On behalf of the teenager, defense attorney Michael Talbot said the 18-year-old had followed her mother’s lead and had good reason to believe she did not have the new coronavirus.

“By the time they left Brisbane there was no community transmission of Covid-19 in Brisbane and they had also passed the three-day test upon arrival.

“So he had no basis or reason to believe he had Covid-19 and perhaps a basis to believe he did not.”

Judge Sainsbury said that while this may have been the teenager’s belief, he was “wrong” as there were very good reasons for the quarantine period to be 14 days. Several people who have undergone controlled isolation have tested positive on day 12, after testing negative on day 3.

However, the judge said the crime was at the lower end of the scale compared to someone who can escape from an isolation facility in an infected state.

The judge accepted that the teenager had followed her mother’s example in a state of mourning and fired her without conviction.

“This was also a very realistic grief situation. Your father had died suddenly and unexpectedly. I accept that you had a particularly close relationship with him.”

“I think the desire to see his father and say goodbye before his funeral had an impact on overriding what could have been the sensible decision.”

The maximum penalty for failing to comply with orders under the 2020 Covid-19 Public Health Response Act is six months in prison or a fine of $ 4000.

– RNZ