Help support Amandas injustice

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My name is Meg Smith and I have created this go fund me page on behalf of my Canadian best friend Amanda Phillips.

The Australian Justice System has failed to show Amanda justice and has instead left her broken and afraid.

On the 29th of December I received a phone call from the Perth Watch House Police Station. The officer on duty told me they had Amanda Phillips in custody and she had requested to speak with me.
That was the beginning of the next heartbreaking three weeks.

Fortunately the communication between Amanda and I has been consistent, which has given me the opportunity to support her and her family/friends as much as I can.

Due to Amandas circumstances we had to to go forward with hiring a barrister to appear on her behalf at the Supreme Court.

The cost of legal fees has made a dent in her pocket along with the Courts denying her the opportunity to sell her vehicle which contains all her valuables and belongings.

It is going to make her forced new life back in Canada more difficult than ever expected.

If anyone has a few extra dollars to spare in helping Amanda get home it will be greatly appreciated.

Amanda was transferred from the Bandyup Women’s Prison to the Perth Immigration Detention Centre 3 days ago.

Only upside of this is that she has access to her own phone.

The following paragraphs are from Amanda herself.

I’m kindly asking for your love, help and support. My life has been filled with a lot and of misfortune the last few weeks.

The 19th of December was the worst day of my life. As a lot of you know my dog Blaze, my best friend, was taken by a crocodile in the Northern Territory while on a fishing trip from Queensland to Western Australia. As I’m sure many of you can imagine this was an absolutely traumatizing experience. I did not know how to process it at the time and as I’ve sat in custody the last 3 weeks I still haven’t been able to fully process it. Prison is not the place for grief.

 

The conditions of Northern Territory were getting intense with an outrageous amount of mosquitos and extreme heat. The attack was my breaking point and had to call it quits on the fishing trip. The surroundings were a constant reminder of Blazes last breaths and it was making me go completely insane.

 

As I deal with depression and have learnt over the years if something is not right, make a change. At the time, a change of surroundings felt like a good idea. Looking back maybe it was irrational, but I booked a flight to Perth. I made arrangements for a hotel room, filled out a WA Covid G2G border pass all two days after the incident.

 

The day after the bookings I was boarding a plane and leaving Darwin with a backpack, my surfboard and a scattered brain. I was landing in Perth without my home on wheels (my van, which broke down a month previously) or my best mate. Essentially I arrived without my entire life, my whole world, I was a mess.

 

My only hope to deal with this darkness, was to find a place of peace. Like many of my friends, that magic place, our therapy, it’s in the Natural World. For me in particular, camping and surfing is my escape from reality, it’s my religion and with religion comes peace.

 

I left the hotel after my one night reservation, not thinking about the document, and headed to camp. After a week of naturally isolating due to my lifestyle, I was contacted by police on my whereabouts. This is when I found out how serious not accurately putting an address on a piece of paper is. I had put the hotel address on the border pass.

 

As I spent the previous month and a half in extremely isolated areas around the Northern Territory without cell service, Covid had not been on my mind. Not to mention I flew from a state deemed low risk at the time with at most a handful of Covid cases. I did not feel to be a risk to anyone when I flew into Western Australia. Ironically, I later found out that Perth had several outbreaks just before my flight, which in reality if I was catching the virus it would have been from WA, not a flight from NT.

 

I was arrested on the 29th of December for breaching quarantine and brought straight into detainment in Perth. I had minimal resources and contact time, not ideal for someone with charges to face and very little knowledge of the justice system.

 

I was given a Duty Lawyer, who stated in our 5 minute conversation before the trial that she believes I’ll be released that evening pending fines. Of course that was far from reality. My case was held by one of the hardest judges in Western Australia. She had no empathy towards my situation or clouded decision making. She sentenced me with two month imprisonment, and additional 4 months parole.

 

The duty lawyer who was defending me thought the sentence was so absurd she got the similar case after me pushed another day in hopes JUDGE would not be present. Thank goodness the other girl got her trial moved and made bail with a more empathetic and reasonable judge the following day.

 

Not so luckily for me, after a week in prison I was able to hire my own defence lawyer (all thanks to my incredible best friend helping me from the outside). My lawyers, Chris Townsend, was able to appeal my sentence and a judge approved my bail hearing. The bail was going to allow me to join the general community until I await the next trial date with the Supreme Court.

 

Unfortunately I am not writing this story out in the general public, I am trying to scramble all these words together while sitting in an immigration detainment centre at the Perth Airport.

 

Australia border force intervened the day I made bail and informed me they have cancelled my visa due to this conviction. This has made me an alien here in Australia and now must be detained with immigration until the outcome my trial. Now I’m not only facing criminal charges but being forced to deport the country after 4 years of calling Australia home.

 

Many of my friends, family members, lawyers and even many of the guards of the prison have been in shock with sentencing. It’s been a dark and horrible journey, not something I’d wish upon anyone. I’m hoping you reading this may be in my corner too. This is where I’m asking for that love, help and support. I would be forever grateful for my story to be heard and shared. I do not want anyone else to go though anything like this and I do not want my case to be the prerequisite the authorities use to punish anyone else.

 

I have followed the rules during the pandemic the last two years. I am double vaccinated and wear my mask. I know the actions I made were against what I wrote on a piece of paper, on a Covid 19 domestic border pass. But does that really make me a criminal? A person whom deserves two month in prison? 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. If you may agree too please share, I would appreciate the support for what I believe is my injustice.

 

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this