An Adelaide court has issued a warrant for a man accused of holding multiple house parties during South Australia’s last COVID-19 lockdown.
Key points:
- Five people were arrested over an alleged illegal gathering at Lightsview in July
- It was during South Australia’s seven-day lockdown
- One of the accused failed to attend court today
Bitanya Sibeko failed to appear for a hearing on his charge of failing to comply with a health directive.
He was one of five people arrested when police attended a house party in the suburb of Lightsview on July 26, allegedly for the fourth time in five days.
Magistrate Michelle Sutcliff issued a warrant for Mr Sibeko’s arrest to ensure he attends court.
The party was in Adelaide’s north-east suburbs, the epicentre of the July outbreak of the Delta variant of COVID-19.
ABC News
)Four other people, a 29-year-old Torrensville woman, an 18-year-old Fairview Park woman, a 19-year-old woman also from Fairview Park and a 24-year-old man from Salisbury North — were charged with breaching the Emergency Management Act.
They are also scheduled to face court this week.
At the time, South Australian Police Commissioner Grant Stevens, responding to question from a journalist, called the group “alleged idiots” for deliberately ignoring health directions.
“It’s incredibly frustrating but it’s not so much my personal frustration,” he said.
“I think everybody else who is doing the right thing in South Australia should be really disappointed in the fact that some people just think these rules just don’t apply to them.”
But he also said the Lightsview party was “not the worst example” of lockdown breaches.
“Over the past 18 months, we have seen more instances where there have been more severe restrictions in place on the community where we have seen large gatherings and the police have responded,” the commissioner said at the time.
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