Throw the pair of them in jail
After Love Island star and boyfriend f lout Covid laws on Barbados, enraged islanders launch petition demanding...
A LOVE Island star arrested in Barbados for flouting quarantine laws has so outraged islanders they want her thrown in jail.
Former Miss Great Britain Zara Holland and her partner Elliott Love were detained at the airport as they tried to flee the Caribbean island rather than quarantine at a monitoring unit after he tested positive for Covid.
They were held as the Barbados government brought in tough measures to suppress coronavirus transmission on the popular winter holiday destination.
Those breaking Covid laws on the island face an £18,000 fine or jail.
On Friday, Briton James MacLean, a frequent visitor to Barbados, launched a petition, called ‘Send Zara Holland and Elliott Love to jail’, which will be passed to the island’s Prime Minister Mia Mottley.
Mr MacLean wrote: ‘They undermined the huge amount of work that had been done to suppress community transmission and they didn’t just risk the livelihoods of Bajans, they risked their lives.
‘If one single person dies as a result of their selfish and cowardly actions, then they should be charged with murder. Either way, we strongly believe they should receive a custodial sentence, either in Barbados or the UK, for wantonly endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.’
Barbados activist Ronelle King told The Mail on Sunday that the couple’s actions amounted to a
‘conscious act of bio-terrorism’, adding: ‘I want them fined, imprisoned, deported and banned. In that order.’
Miss Holland, 25, issued a grovelling apology to the island’s government and its furious residents, claiming the couple’s actions were the result of a ‘massive mix-up and misunderstanding’.
When Mr Love tested positive for Covid on arrival last Sunday, the couple were given red wristbands and told to remain in their room at the £300-a-night Sugar Bay Hotel until they were taken to a quarantine centre on the north of the island.
Instead, they booked a British Airways flight, cut off their wristbands and took a taxi to the airport where, according to a local source, ‘their names raised some red flags with airport officials because of their short turnaround time in the country’. Police were then alerted.
Miss Holland, from North Ferriby, East Yorkshire, told island newspaper Barbados Today: ‘I want to apologise to the entire country of Barbados for what has been a massive mix-up and misunderstanding. I would never do anything to jeopardise an entire nation that I have nothing but love and respect for.’
It is understood Miss Holland is staying at a secret location after leaving St Lucy’s District Hospital, a basic unit where tourists quarantine until they can provide two negative tests. Mr Love, 30, remains at the hospital.
Sources on the island are questioning why Miss Holland, who was stripped of her Miss Great Britain title in 2016 after having sex on screen on that year’s Love Island, has not been charged.