The two Melbourne fans who forged and fibbed their way into Perth to watch their team triumph at the grand final will spend the rest of the year behind bars — after being labelled among the worst COVID breachers of the pandemic.
Melbourne bar owner Hayden Burbank, 49, and his financial planner friend Mark Babbage, 39, both admitted to breaching WA’s tough COVID laws, as well as a charge of fraud over the raft of documents they fabricated to fool State authorities late last month.
A driving license and registration document, a bank statement and a tenancy agreement all made it look like the pair lived in the Northern Territory when they applied for the G2G pass in the week leading up to Melbourne’s Optus Stadium showdown with the Western Bulldogs.
That fraudulent information included using the home address of former AFL player Matt Ahmat to get into WA, who had no idea what the pair were up to.
The lies got them across the border, and into a friend’s place in Cottesloe — from where they then went to a pre-grand final lunch, and then into the game itself.
The result eventually went their way, with the Demons winning their first flag for 57 years.
Today though, it didn’t — after Magistrate Matthew Holgate said their offending was too serious to let them walk out of prison immediately.
Instead, they will spend a total of three months behind bars. Another seven months imprisonment was suspended.
