Man who triggered Australia lockdown is jailed

A man has been sentenced to five months in prison for Covid-19 rule breaches that forced southern Tasmania to lock down for three days.

Timothy Andrew Gunn tested positive for the coronavirus after he flew into the island state illegally and then “absconded from hotel quarantine in Hobart”, The Guardian reported.

The 31-year-old had also lied about where he had been before he arrived via a flight from Melbourne, a court heard this week. Gunn claimed to have been in Queensland for 14 days but had in fact been in his home state of New South Wales (NSW), then classified as a high-risk area.

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Travel ban

Gunn had “made two previous applications to enter the state that had been rejected” because he was coming from NSW, said ABC News. Travel from NSW into Tasmania was banned at the time.

He also lied in those applications, saying he was a Tasmania resident, but checks proved his claims to be false, Hobart Magistrates’ Court heard.

After flying into Tasmania in October, Gunn’s “identity and falsehoods were discovered”, and he was ordered to quarantine at the state capital’s Travelodge hotel for two weeks, the news site reported.

But it was clear that “he was unhappy from outset”, said Magistrate Sam Mollard. “He was intending to leave quarantine even as he was taken there.”

Gunn fled from the hotel hours later. He was arrested the following day at a house in Hobart’s northern suburbs, where he had spent time with “several other people”, The Guardian reported.

His subsequent positive test for Covid prompted the state government “to enforce restrictions across the south and a mask mandate that lasted about a week”, said the newspaper.

After pleading guilty to escaping hotel quarantine and lying to emergency management workers, Gunn was sentenced to five months, backdated by two months already served in custody, and fined AU$1,500 (£800).

Gunn’s reason for entering Tasmania was also “unlawful”, the court had heard. He was “planning to see a woman who had a family violence order against him”, although magistrate Mollard noted that “she also wanted to see him”, ABC News reported.

Gunn was sentenced to five months, with two months suspended, for breaching family violence orders, taking his total sentence to ten months, with four months suspended.

‘Forgive me’

In an interview with Australia’s 7News following his arrest, Gunn apologised for the “trouble” he caused, but insisted that he had been told he did not have to quarantine on arrival in Tasmania.

“I did not do this on purpose. It definitely wasn’t an act of selfishness or carelessness. I would hope that sometime soon Tasmania could find it in their heart to forgive me,” he said.

Gunn added that he was not “that type of guy that would just go galavanting around, I’ve got total remorse. I rang Public Health and told them everything and I produced a negative test before I left, and they said I did everything right and that I didn’t need to quarantine.”

The broadcaster reported that the “snap lockdown” triggered when Gunn tested positive in Tasmania “sparked a wave of panic buying” in the state. As supermarket shelves were stripped bare, Tasmania’s Premier Peter Gutwein called for police to “throw the book” at Gunn.

Local paper The Mercury also took a pop at Gunn, listing him as one of the state’s “biggest Covidiots”.