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A farm supervisor who has allegedly been in need of strawberries in Brisbane court has heard.
Key points:
- The 50-year-old has been involved with seven counts of contaminating goods
- The charges are made up to the original
- Strawberry growers say the impact of contamination scare "crippled" the industry
My Ut Trinh, 50, will remain in custody after the death of an application for the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
It was arrested in Brisbane on Sunday, 2 months ago by Queensland Police are on the verge of punishment.
Ms Trinh worked as a supervisor at the Berry Licious Farm, but her lawyer said she did not work picking strawberries in the packing sheds.
The court heard the woman was allegedly acting out of spite and was an act of sabotage.
"The case is that it is motivated by some spite or revenge," Magistrate Christine Roney said.
"She has gotten excited about putting on a metal object into fruit."
Prosecutor Cheryl Tesch opted for a lease on "the unacceptable risk of being interfered with".
But Ms Trinh's lawyer Michael Cridland said the police had "not articulated" an actual alleged grievance.
The prosecution told the court the woman should also be kept behind bars for her own safety.
"There may be retribution from people seeking to locate her," Prosecutor Tesch said.
However, Mr Cridland said there had been no evidence of direct threats to his client.
Police have been charged with the issue of seven cases of contamination with economic loss.
The offense normally carries a three-year maximum penalty.
However, there is a circumstance of "aggravation", meaning the maximum is increased to 10 years.
The court heard the woman's DNA was found in a punnet of strawberries in Victoria.
Superintendent Jon Wacker, from the Queensland Police Drug and Serious Crime Group, said the investigation "was far from over".
"DNA evidence will be part of the brief of evidence that will be submitted to the court," he said.
Superintendent Wacker said items had been played in an important role.
"This is a major and unprecedented police investigation with a lot of complexities involved," Superintendent Wacker said in a statement.
"The Queensland Police Service has allocated a significant amount of resources to ensure that they are brought to justice."
The contamination saga spread from Queensland across the country.
Superintendent Wacker said there were 186 reports of sewing needles being found, 77 of which were in Queensland.
He said 15 of those were found to be hoaxes.
Sixty-eight strawberry brands were affected, including 49 in Queensland.
The contamination scares resulted in supermarkets pulling strawberries off the shelves, and tons of fruit was dumped at the peak of the growing season.
The Queensland and West Australian Governments have the honor of being elected by the Prime Minister of the United States of America.
'I had to put 100 staff off': Industry still reeling from crisis
Suncoast Harvest managing director Di West said that he had to pay more than one million punnets of strawberries on the ground.
"We're talking about six weeks in September," she told ABC Radio Brisbane.
"We had at least a million punnets of strawberries out there and we had to make production straight away.
"There was so much copycaking and pranking going on that other farms, including bears, was being dragged into it."
She said there was a lot of unknowns for her business moving into the future.
"I had two separate agronomists tell us we had lost $ 1 million worth of fruit and that meant that $ 300,000 or $ 400,000 of that would have gone to workers' wages – and now that," she said. .
"There's flow-on effects – I had to put 100 staff off."
Grower Gavin Scurr from Pinata Farms at Wamuran
"It's certainly been a rollercoaster ride for us and hopefully something we do not see again in our industry," Mr Scurr said.
Queensland Strawberry Growers Association vice president Adrian Schultz thanked police for their work.
"We're just grateful that they are pursuing and pursuing their lines of inquiry and have come up with this result," he said.
He said he hoped the industry could move on.
"This should be a full stop to this situation," he said.
topics:
law-crime-and-justice
Food-safety,
consumer-protection
qld,
australia,
brisbane-4000
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