Perth woman, 33, fitted with ankle bracelet after breaching quarantine

A 33-year-old woman has become the first person in Australia to be fitted with an electronic monitoring device whilst in Covid-19 quarantine, after police caught her breaching the terms of a quarantine direction.

The Perth woman was fitted with the ankle bracelet on Friday, WA Police confirmed in a statement last night.

The woman, who has not been identified, was permitted to enter the state from New South Wales on September 1 and ordered to carry out a 14-day quarantine period at a private address, alone. However, when police carried out a routine check on day 10, they found two men visiting the woman.

“The woman was advised she would be issued with a $1,000 infringement for Failure to Comply with a Direction,” WA Police said in a statement.

“After careful consideration of the circumstances of the breach and the woman’s previous history, the State Emergency Coordinator formed a view that it was necessary to monitor her location during the quarantine period.”

The ankle monitor, which are more commonly used to monitor criminals out on bail, will remain on the woman’s ankle for the remainder of her quarantine period. She has also been moved to a quarantine hotel following the breach.

WA Police Minister Michelle Roberts previously discussed the use of ankle bracelets as a way of tracking those in quarantine.

“It’s something that we contemplated as a Government earlier in the year, we put the legislation through in April,” she said last month. “These are GPS ankle bracelets. We purchased 200 of them for this exact purpose and, as I understand it, the state emergency coordinator is progressing a direction so we can do just that.”

Roberts added that the direction isn’t about fitting ankle bracelets to people that don’t need them or using them unnecessarily but instead it’ll be assessed on a case-by-case basis with the person needing to prove themselves to be someone who can’t be trusted.