A 19-year-old Gordon woman who attended a Halloween party while knowingly COVID-positive in October 2021 has been given a good behaviour order in the ACT Magistrates Court today.
Ashley Carter-Gair was diagnosed with COVID-19 in October last year, while the ACT was still subject to various COVID-19 public health orders – including a mandatory 14-day quarantine period for positive cases.
The court heard Carter-Gair left quarantine on day 11 to attend a Halloween party, and then went out in Canberra's city centre with friends.
The court heard police were alerted to the breach of the public health orders through an anonymous tip-off, after someone who wanted to attend the party found out Carter-Gair would be attending.
Images posted to Carter-Gair's Instagram, which showed her kissing a friend on the lips and kissing another friend's stomach while knowingly COVID-positive were tendered in court documents.
Notification of breach left on read
Police documents allege that officers initiated contact with Carter-Gair by sending her a text message notifying her that they were aware of the breach on October 31, and reminding her that she needed to quarantine.
The message was marked as 'read' and a short time later, police noted that the Instagram post was deleted.
When police attended Carter-Gair's residence to arrest her, they said she slammed the door shut on them, locked it and refused to comply. She complied about 10 minutes later.
Special Magistrate Jane Campbell described the offending as "serious" and said Carter-Gair had put the community "in danger" through her actions.
"Ms Carter-Gair's conduct was extremely dangerous and there's a need to protect the community," Special Magistrate Campbell said.
She sentenced her to a six-month good behaviour order for knowingly going out while COVID-positive, and a three-month good behaviour order for breaching public health directions.
When handing down her sentence, Special Magistrate Campbell noted that Carter-Gair was on a good behaviour order at the time of the offending and suggested she did not like to follow orders imposed by authority.
