‘They need to identify the body’: Father sues state over hotel quarantine after daughter’s death

Flinn was working in Hong Kong when he received news on May 2, 2021 that his daughter had died in Melbourne. He boarded a Cathay Pacific flight with 20 other passengers, and his family submitted a hotel quarantine exemption request on compassionate grounds. After testing negative to COVID-19, Flinn and his teenage son were issued detention notices at Melbourne Airport and taken by bus to the Element hotel in Richmond.

At the time, the federal government required all international arrivals to self-isolate for 14 days, effective from March 15, 2020. Victoria had no lockdowns or reported community transmission when Flinn landed. The family’s request to quarantine at home was denied.

Emails released through court documents show the depth of distress and confusion within government. A Health Department email on May 4, 2021 read: “The level of distress being experienced by the family was assessed as too high for the family to maintain [detention] requirements. The alternative of going home to wife and family would pose a COVID-19 risk to family and public health.” The Department of Justice secretary urged the Health Department to consider an exemption so the family could “identify the body of their daughter”. A psychiatrist, Dr Fiona Bassad, wrote she was “extremely worried about their mental state” and that Flinn “desperately wants [to] say goodbye to [his daughter]”.

Flinn and his son were released on May 17, 2021, after completing two weeks in quarantine. His daughter was laid to rest on May 22, almost three weeks after her death. Flinn is suing the state of Victoria and the Department of Health for damages, claiming “indignity and insult”, loss of liberty and mental distress. He argues that officials failed to assess his personal circumstances, vaccination status, the low risk presented by travellers from Hong Kong, and did not conduct mandatory 24-hour detention reviews.

The state and the Health Department deny any wrongdoing. Their lawyers maintain the decision-making was reasonable and justified. They said the hotel quarantine policy was made in the urgent and unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic. They say exemption requests were considered individually, that Flinn chose to remain in quarantine, and that his family expressed gratitude for the care provided. “I think that the family has appreciated that the level and quality of service being provided in CQV was actually serving their needs better than a remote location version would offer,” one email read.

The state successfully applied for a judge-alone trial, arguing the case was legally complex and that a jury might be prejudiced by the “notoriety and publicity concerning the mandatory hotel quarantine program”. The trial will hear from witnesses including former chief health officer Brett Sutton and his deputy Allen Cheng about the decision-making process around the Flinns’ case and other exemptions. Court documents show that in the three weeks before Flinn’s request, COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria was made aware of 236 exemption requests, four of which were approved on grounds of exceptional medical needs.