A 21-year-old who shares the same name as the Auckland woman who allegedly fled lockdown to holiday with her boyfriend in Wanaka has been the target of some horrific online abuse in the past 12 hours.
The woman's mother told Newstalk ZB's Kerre McIvor an unintended consequence of the couple hiding behind name suppression was that innocent people like her daughter were taking the brunt of the abuse.
A 35-year-old man and 26-year-old woman allegedly used their essential worker exemptions to leave Auckland before catching a flight from Hamilton to Queenstown at the weekend. They then hired a rental car and drove to their Wanaka holiday home, but have since returned to Auckland after police intervened.
The couple was last night granted urgent interim name suppression by a district court judge despite the judge acknowledging their names were already all over social media.