Jollygoodfellow Posted March 18, 2010 Posted March 18, 2010 Makes me wonder what is in the Tea here?? :th_thbarbaque: A tourist from the Philippines has been cleared of wrongdoing after she spent five days in custody on drug charges due to a mix-up over packets of tea she brought into Australia.Customs had detected amphetamines in three 800g packets of lemon-flavoured ice tea brought in by Maria Cecilia Silva, 29, at Melbourne airport on March 13 and handed her over to the Australian Federal Police.In the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday, magistrate Jack Vandersteen ordered the Director of Public Prosecutions pay Ms Silva $5,000 for her ordeal.When her bags were searched at the airport a drug detection dog had reacted to the iced tea containers and further testing of one of the containers came back with a positive result for amphetamine.Ms Silva was released on Thursday after the prosecution withdrew a charge of importing a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug.Her barrister Michael Penna-Rees said the packets of tea, which she had bought in a Philippines supermarket, had never been opened.Mr Vandersteen took the unusual step of releasing Ms Silva inside the court instead of having her returned to the cells and released at the side entry of the courthouse.Once freed, Ms Silva was in tears and clung to a female prison guard who led her through the court to a friend who was waiting to embrace her."She's traumatised, she's lost a lot of weight and she'll be seeing a doctor," Mr Penna-Rees told AAP."She's a wedding planner in the Philippines, her mother is a wedding singer and her father is a wedding musician - it's a family business."She's a totally innocent young lady who has experienced five days in an horrendous situation having her liberty taken away and placed in cells with some serious offenders."Mr Penna-Rees said he understood that there have been similar problems with packets of iced tea on previous occasions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_shor Posted March 19, 2010 Posted March 19, 2010 Can one of you guys buy me some tea? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Lee Posted March 20, 2010 Posted March 20, 2010 I find this whole thing shameful and if that tea tests positive for drugs then it should be banned from the market and the manufacturer should be forced to remove it from the market, especially since it was said that this happened before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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