Court to decide on border busters

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Police have visited the three young people who allegedly breached the Covid-19 Delta lockdown regulations by coming home to Gisborne through the Auckland border earlier this month.

The group were all university students, two of them living in Gisborne and the other at Te Karaka.

They were spoken to at their homes by police last Thursday.

The group had been back in the district since September 8 and were self-insolating.

Police said they would be confirming with the students and their families today what action the police were seeking to take against them.

“The laying of charges against them will be determined by the district court,” police said.

“At this point, the two 20-year-old males and 19-year-old female have not been formally charged.”

Police have not released their names but there has been social media traffic about it since news of their alleged lockdown breach broke last week.

All three tested negative for Covid-19 Delta before coming to Gisborne and since returning they had had no symptoms of the virus, police said.

“Health authorities here do not believe the three are a health risk to this community, given they've had no symptoms and have been here since September 8.

“Because of that no thought has so far been given to returning them to Auckland,” police said.

“The fact they have not been symptomatic does not mean that what they have done is excusable

“We were disappointed, as we are sure the community here would have been, that they returned to Gisborne when everyone else in Auckland was in Level 4 lockdown.”

Police last week said that they must be consistent with what was going on throughout the rest of the country in dealing with this matter.

“The court will now decide what action should be taken in this case.”