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28 NOVEMBER, 2023
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SIG N U P N O W!
A season for giving
St Andrews Uniting Church Bacchus Marsh’s Kylie Lumb and Iris Blythe. (Damjan Janevski)
More than 180 boxes of food are being provided to locals in need through the Bacchus Marsh Uniting Church’s Reverse Advent Calendar program. The program sends boxes out into the community, and in the 20 days leading up to Christmas people are invited to place one item in the box, until the boxes are donated to local food charities. The Reverse Advent Calendar program began five years ago in Ballarat. This year 6000 food relief boxes are being filled across Australia. Church council chair Iris Blythe said the drive has also grown in Bacchus Marsh, beginning with high demand during COVID. “This year, we would have hoped that the problem would have gone away, but inflation and rent increases have meant that many, for the first time, are wondering how they or their families will next have food to eat,” she said. “For many of us, Christmas is a special time for sharing love and caring for others, so this program is a simple way to do just that.”
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Drug ‘wholesaler’ jailed By Liam McNally A Caroline Springs Woman has been sentenced to nine years and two months in prison for trafficking more than two kilograms of heroin and methamphetamine. County Court judge Carolene Gwynn described the defendant, Thi Loan Ngo, as a “wholesaler” who between September 9 and October 19, 2020 trafficked 1430.1 grams of heroin and 777.7 grams of methamphetamine valued at an estimated $833,000 when sold by the ounce. The court heard how Ngo, now age 48,
came to Australia as a refugee from Vietnam in 1983 with her adoptive grandparents. She attended Footscray Primary School and commenced secondary schooling at Melbourne Girls College in Richmond but left after falling pregnant at 14. Ngo’s involvement in the drug trade began after she developed a gambling addiction amassing $120,000 in debt to “loan sharks” she’d met at the casino by 2009. When Ngo could not furnish interest repayments to the loan sharks, she was offered the role of “heroin mule” as a mechanism to pay her debts.
Previous convictions for drug trafficking in 2009, 2012 and 2014 are said to relate to this arrangement. Ngo instructed her lawyers that in 2014 she told the loan sharks she would no longer traffick on their behalf. In response an arrangement was made for her to pay $500 per month without interest accruing. The mother of three, who cares for a daughter with an intellectual disability and autism, said in 2020 she had no work due to the pandemic and still owing $140,000, “stupidly accepted the role of getting involved with drugs”.
Judge Gwynn said the explanation provided context but that she found it difficult to accept. “Your offending demonstrates the ease with which you fell into old habits and a lack of insight of the impact of your offending on the community,” the judge said. Ngo pleaded guilty and was sentenced earlier this month over two counts of trafficking a commercial quantity of a drug of dependence and one charge of knowingly dealing with the proceeds of crime. The judge set a non-parole period of six years and two months.
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