Crash ends in driving ban for ex-model
FORMER model Kate Fischer has been fined $1500 and banned from driving for 27 months after pleading guilty to refusing a breath test and crashing her car.
The 44-year-old, legally known as Tziporah Malkah after changing her name in her early 20s, was accused of driving intoxicated in the up-market Melbourne suburb of Toorak on January 3.
The Melbourne Magistrates Court heard the onetime fiancee of billionaire James Packer and daughter of NSW Minister for Families Pru Goward was getting by on just a $200-a-fortnight carer’s pension.
The case against Malkah stemmed from an incident at the start of the year when police responded to reports of a car driving erratically.
She was then seen reversing into a car and not stopping to tell the owner.
When police caught up with Malkah, she refused a breath test five times and was charged.
“Police formed the view she was alcohol-affected,” a police prosecution summary said.
The court heard Malkah lost millions of dollars in a real estate scam in Los Angeles and spent two years living in a women’s shelter after returning to Australia penniless.
The I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! contestant worked in aged care for a while, but had not had a job since breaking her ankle in July.
“She’s very financially challenged,” defence lawyer Michael Kulzilny said. Outside court Malkah said she now hopes to study nursing and work in Israel.
While living in Los Angeles, the former model claims she was fleeced of $2 million — believed to have been given to her by Packer when the pair split up — by a conman rabbi she met at a singles group.
Malkah, as Fischer, shot to fame in 1988 as the 14-year-old winner of a Dolly magazine cover girl competition.
She went on to star opposite Hugh Grant in Sirens and accept a $500,000 engagement ring from Packer.
The two split up in 1998 with Malkah beating a hasty retreat from the spotlight, converting to Judaism, gaining some 50kg and living a sheltered life until returning to Australia last year.