BIRTH COMES WITH F- BOMB
A TOWNSVILLE woman’s plan to steal hundreds of dollars worth of items from a shopping centre was foiled because her getaway vehicle was a local bus.
Dannika Angel Archer yesterday pleaded guilty to three charges of stealing and one charge of wilful damage in Townsville Magistrates Court.
On April 5, the apprentice chef packed a trolley with toiletries from the Woolworths supermarket at Stockland Townsville and fled. She had also stolen perfume from Terry White Chemists and other items from Bras N Things and another temporary store.
Archer ran from the shopping centre with the items, worth a total of $ 429, and caught a bus. Shopping centre security called police, who apprehended her at the next stop.
The wilful damage charge stemmed from an incident on December 29 last year, when Archer damaged clothing from fashion store Salt 66 at the Castletown shopping centre.
She had forcibly removed security tags from dresses, causing a rip of about 1cm. She was confronted by staff who asked her to pay for the items.
Archer handed the items, worth $ 149, to staff and left.
Magistrate Peter Smid fined Archer $ 750 and ordered that she pay compensation to Salt 66. No conviction was recorded. ANDREW BACKHOUSE A TOWNSVILLE mother has been left shocked by a letter from the State Government asking for her participation in a survey by using an explicit code word.
Hayley Dyer gave birth to her daughter Olivia in April and was last week contacted by the Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to participate in a University of Sunshine Coast study about unexpected deaths in infants.
Ms Dyer was told she could either fill in the enclosed questionnaire or complete the survey online but she must use her unique and confidential four- letter code word – f* ck.
“I honestly thought it was a joke and that some sort of virus must have got into their computer system and changed the code word,” she said.
Ms Dyer has since received an apology and was told her computergenerated F- bomb might not have been the only inappropriate code word to slip through.
“They said it was a one in 465,511 possibility that my variation of letters could have been generated,” she said.
“Apparently there have been some other letters that have gone out with other somewhat inappropriate terms.
“God help them if the C- bomb gets out there.”
A spokesman for the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages said the department was asked to facilitate the distribution of a survey to recent mothers on behalf of University of Sunshine Coast. He said all user codes provided to the survey were one- offs and should not have contained inappropriate language.
“The Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages ( BDM) assists wherever possible with health research,” he said.
“The four- letter codes were randomly generated by computer and were provided to BDM. Unfortunately, the offensive word was not detected by either USC or the BDM staff ff member tasked with filling the envelopes.”
The spokesman confirmed the department had contacted Ms Dyer to personally apologise for any offence caused by the “administrative oversight”.
“In future, BDM will seek guarantees from researchers that any materials provided for distribution have been appropriately vetted,” he said.
Ms Dyer said she was pleased the issue was being investigated but was taking the survey in good humour.
“I might get the letter laminated and keep it in Olivia’s glory box and show her when she’s 18 because she probably shouldn’t know that word until then,” she said.