Covid 19 coronavirus: Isolation escapees 'weren't granted viewing' before father's burial

Name: Focus Live: Hamilton isolation escapees were trying to get to funeral
Uploaded: 2020-07-25T11:28:12+12:00
Duration: 263 s
Description: Five people accused of absconding from managed isolation in Hamilton last night wanted to attend a relative's funeral in Auckland.

NZ Herald

26 Jul, 2020 07:13 AM3 mins to read

Five people accused of absconding from managed isolation in Hamilton last night wanted to attend a relative's funeral in Auckland.

The mother of a family charged with absconding from a Hamilton isolation hotel says the family has missed out on seeing the body of her children's father before he was buried.

Police said the woman and four of her children jumped a fence on Friday night to escape from the facility because they wanted to see the children's father's body before his funeral.

The family is accused of forcing their way through a window before scaling a fence.

Most were quickly apprehended near Hamilton's Distinction Hotel but one teenager among the group made it all the way to Auckland. It would be a further 10 hours before authorities picked up the 17-year-old boy.

"We weren't being granted a viewing it was 7pm with only hours to go before he was buried," the 37-year-old mother said in her post.

"Desperate times desperate measures. Time had run out."

In her appeal to officials, the woman stated "my children watched as their father took his last breaths through a video call. It's hard to express the severe impact it's had on my children and to see their dad one last time before they close the casket would mean the world to them."

Their request for exemption when they arrived in the country on Tuesday to attend the funeral today was turned down because the health risk was deemed too high.

At the time, the family had not done their day three Covid-19 test, but that test had since been done and results came back negative yesterday afternoon.

Four of the five family members have appeared in court today, charged with leaving a managed isolation facility.

Earlier the woman also took to social media to criticise the process that refused her family the right to say goodbye to the children's father after they travelled from Brisbane.

The reason they rushed home was to attend today's funeral in South Auckland of the children's father and woman's former partner, who died on Monday following a stroke aged 39.

However the woman said she finally got to see family members today outside the hotel "15 minutes every time for each visit".