Four men who hid in a freight train and travelled from Victoria into South Australia in breach of COVID–19 laws have escaped conviction after admitting the offences.
Nicholas Batty, 29, Alexander Moore, 22, Jacob Todd, 29, and Sam Gledhill, 26, all pleaded guilty to two offences in the Adelaide Magistrates Court today.
They were arrested at Adelaide's Regency Park rail yard yesterday after stowing away on the freight train which was travelling from Melbourne to Perth.
The court was told Batty and Todd — who were not known to each other — were trying to get to the Northern Territory, while Moore was an engineering student from Victoria who only planned to stay in SA for one week.
Gledhill, a New Zealand national, was also a university student but the court heard he was suffering from anxiety relating to the strict isolation requirements in Melbourne.
Lawyers for all men told the court that they did not appreciate the seriousness of their offending.
Magistrate John Fahey did not record convictions for Batty, Moore, Todd and Gledhill and placed each of them on a 12-month good behaviour bond.
He told the men that their actions were serious because South Australia currently had no infections and Victoria has "had quite a spike".
"What you've unwittingly done is that you've breached these restrictions," he told the men.
"There's potentially some serious health consequences for your breaches."
Magistrate Fahey said they had spent more than a day in police custody, which would have been a harrowing experience for them.
He said they would now go into the "custody of SA Health and police" and are expected to quarantine for 14 days.
