A young backpacker is facing deportation from Australia back to her home country of Canada over a Covid quarantine breach that began when her dog was eaten by a crocodile.
Amanda Phillips, 27, was on a fishing trip with best friend, her pooch named Blaze, was taken by a crocodile a week before Christmas.
She is now waiting to hear back from a supreme court and is pleading funds to help her get back to Canada after she claims she had been locked up alongside “murderers and rapists”.
The traumatised 27-year-old quit her fishing adventure after Blaze’s death and headed from Darwin to Perth after obtaining a G2G visa.
(Image: Getty Images)
On her GoFundMe page which she set up to pay her legal costs, Phillips said: “The conditions of Northern Territory were getting intense with an outrageous amount of mosquitos and extreme heat.”
Phillips, who had lived in Australia for four years and was travelling through Queensland in a van that broke down before her dog died in her trip that quickly turned disastrous.
She said: “The attack was my breaking point and had to call it quits on the fishing trip. The surroundings were a constant reminder of Blaze’s last breaths and it was making me go completely insane.”
(Image: Getty Images)
Ms Phillips, who is double vaccinated against coronavirus, is said to have broken lockdown rules after she left the hotel she was isolating in for a camping trip.
Phillips pleaded guilty to three counts of failing to comply with a direction, and while she was expecting to be let off with a fine was instead placed in Bandyup Women’s jail for six months, Daily Mail reported.
She said: “I was locked up with murderers, rapists, thieves and drug dealers. It might just be me but I don’t consider ‘Breacher of Quarantine’ a title that fits with these other convicts.”
She was granted bail on January 12 for a “manifestly excessive” sentence, but was soon rushed to an immigration detention centre to await a supreme court date after her visa was cancelled.
