One of two women who illegally left Sydney's lockdown to spend days shopping and partying in Newcastle sparking a months-long lockdown has been criminally convicted and fined $4000.
Josephine Lado, 20, tested positive to COVID-19 after numerous shopping jaunts and attending several parties in Newcastle in late July.
Magistrate Andrew George reprimanded the Rooty Hill resident in Mt Druitt Local Court on Wednesday, saying she spread "COVID all over the land".
Her defence argued for no conviction, saying she was young, of very good character, and had negatively suffered from an earlier assault in Wagga.
She had sought refuge in Newcastle where she has close family ties and was suffering mental health issues at the time, the court was told.
But Mr George said letting her off was "simply not on the table".
What you have done is completely unacceptable, many people would expect me to send you to prison
Magistrate Andrew George
"This is a matter of her responsibility to the community who she let down substantially, she says she knows this now but it's a bit late for the people she infected," he said.
The magistrate said Lado risked spreading the potentially lethal disease "for entirely selfish reasons".
"What you have done is completely unacceptable, many people would expect me to send you to prison for it."
Lado pleaded guilty to failing to comply with a COVID-19 health order and failing to comply with COVID check-in requirements.
Her co-accused, Sulafa Ageeb Ageeb, 21, who travelled with Lado and also later tested positive to coronavirus, is due to be sentenced on November 24.
Lado admitted in August she'd kept her Newcastle travel secret from contact tracers after testing positive.
According to police facts tendered in both cases, neither checked into the many venues they visited.
Her journey about 170km from her Sydney home to Broadmeadow began on July 27 and included visiting Westfield Kotara, the largest shopping complex in Newcastle.
A friend's birthday dinner in Hamilton followed, which led to another gathering of about 40 people at a Shortland home.
She admitted more shopping and going to a nail salon with her co-accused and two others in Charlestown on July 29 before another party in the same Shortland house that night.
Police were notified and attended about 1.45am on July 30, where they saw "numerous" people run into a parked car where they found both women pretending to be asleep on the back seat.
Police said the pair undertook a "calculated and concerted effort" to alter check-in and address data in their Service NSW app.
Despite being ordered to return home and await $1000 fines in the mail, both women partied on the following night.
First up was a large gathering at Blacksmiths Beach on Lake Macquarie before heading back to the Shortland home with several others.
The pair finally caught a train home on July 31.
