A former farm supervisor seeking revenge over a workplace row sparked nationwide panic by hiding needles in strawberries, an Australian court heard yesterday.
My Ut Trinh, 50, was arrested on Sunday and appeared before magistrates in Brisbane today charged with seven counts of contamination of goods. If found guilty, she could face ten years in prison. The Vietnamese refugee was identified by police using DNA evidence recovered from a contaminated punnet of fruit in Victoria.
Prosecutors claim that Trinh, who worked as a supervisor at a berry farm north of Brisbane, acted out of a desire for revenge after a disagreement with her employer.
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Magistrate Christine Roney described the case as “highly unusual” and said the defendant’s alleged motive was “hard to understand”, says the Brisbane Times.
Trinh’s lawyer attempted to file a bail request but “the magistrate forced him to withdraw it, in part for her own protection”, Nine News reports - an indication of the strength of feeling generated by the case across Australia.
The first spiked punnet was discovered in Queensland in September, when a man was admitted to hospital after swallowing half a needle concealed in a strawberry he had purchased from Woolworths, one of Australia’s major supermarket chains.
Since then, more than 100 incidents of spiked strawberries have been reported across the country, along with isolated cases of needles disguised in apples, bananas and mangoes. However, most of the cases are believed to be fake or the work of twisted copycats.
Following the first incident, Woolworths announced that it was temporarily suspending sales of sewing needles in stores and online, amid increasing panic over fruit tampering.
The hysteria has “severely damaged Australia's multimillion dollar fruit industry”, CNN reports. “Large numbers of strawberries were recalled from Australian supermarkets, and many farmers were forced to bin their crops.”
In response to the scare, the government announced that the maximum penalty for food tampering would rise from ten years to 15 years in prison.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison also issued a warning to the perpetrator. “It’s not a joke, it’s not funny, you’re putting the livelihoods of hard-working Australians at risk and you’re scaring children,” he said. “You’re a coward and you’re a grub and if you do that sort of thing in this country we will come after you.”
In a statement today, the Queensland Strawberry Growers Association applauded the arrest and called for copycats to be brought to justice for their part in whipping up what they called “a crisis driven by social media”.
Trinh, who has lived in Australia for two decades, will remain in custody until her next court hearing, on 22 November.
