The 45-year-old took to Instagram on the weekend, asking followers to “help” her find a new man after she split from her Indonesian boyfriend.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Schapelle Corby on life after Bali
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In the post, Corby is pictured walking along the beach holding the hand of her ex-boyfriend, Ben Panangian, whose image has been scratched out.
“Looking for a new Four Leaf Clover,” the image is captioned.
“ATTENTION. Help a girl out – Get Tagging.”
The original photo is from 2019 when Corby and Panangian were on holiday together.
Corby was deported from Bali back to Australia in 2017 after spending almost a decade in a Balinese prison for drug smuggling.
She had maintained a long-distance relationship with Panangian, but things are clearly now over.
And Corby’s followers had a field day with her post.
“DM anytime, I’m here for ya,” one person wrote.
“I have a two-screen Netflix account and a wine club membership,” another offered.
Schapelle Corby is looking for love. Credit: Instagram/Schapelle Corby
Others tagged their friends in, with one person writing: “He’s a strapping young lad with an eye for a mature madam.”
The friend who had been tagged added: “Gimme a chance Schapelle.”
“She’s single and ready to mingle,” one person noted.
“Girl, pick me! I’m single,” another pleaded.
Corby met Panangian in prison in Bali in 2006.
Also convicted on drug offences, Panangian was released from prison in 2009.
Corby was paroled in 2014 and returned to Australia in 2017.
Schapelle Corby and Ben Panangian. Credit: Instagram/Schapelle Corby
The couple spent the next two years meeting up in places where their criminal convictions weren’t an issue.
Corby is not allowed to return to Indonesia and it’s understood the pair hadn’t seen each other face-to-face since the COVID pandemic began.
Rumors that Corby would appear on the new season of The Bachelorette were quickly shot down by producers, who said they were not interested in having “celebrities” on the show next season.
New Zealand cricketer Trent Boult has been granted a release from his national contract so the bowler can spend more time with his family and make himself available for domestic leagues.
On Wednesday morning, New Zealand Cricket confirmed the 33-year-old will have a “significantly reduced role” with the Black Caps, upon his request.
The talented left-armer sits at No. 1 on the ICC Men’s ODI Bowling Rankings, having taken 169 scalps at 25.21 since his international debut in 2011. He has also taken 317 Test wickets at 27.49.
Boult will still be eligible for New Zealand selection when available.
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“This has been a really tough decision for me and I’d like to thank NZC for their support in getting to this point,” Boult said in a statement.
“Playing cricket for my country was a childhood dream and I’m so proud of everything I’ve been able to achieve with the Black Caps over the past 12 years.
“Ultimately this decision is about my wife Gert and our three young boys. Family has always been the biggest motivator for me and I feel comfortable with putting it first and preparing ourselves for life after cricket.
“I still have a great desire to represent my country and feel I have the skills to deliver at the international level. However, I respect the fact that not having a national contract will affect my chances of selection.
“Having said that, as a fast bowler I know I have a limited career span, and I feel the time is right to move into this next phase.”
Boult’s bombshell move could have substantial ramifications for NZC. As more domestic T20 leagues are scheduled during the country’s home summer, Black Caps teammates may be tempted to follow suit.
Boult’s decision to prioritize domestic leagues over international commitments comes after England Test captain Ben Stokes retired from ODI cricket at 31 last month.
Due to the over-saturated cricket calendar, it may soon become the norm for cricketers to step aside from international duties so they can play more high-paying franchise cricket, particularly late in their careers.
The Indian Premier League’s overwhelming success has prompted the introduction of several privately-owned domestic leagues, including the United Arab Emirates’ International League T20 and South Africa’s newly-launched T20 competition.
Importantly, these high-paying tournaments also coincide with the Big Bash League and Australian home summer of cricket, meaning Aussie players could be forced into making some difficult decisions late in their careers.
Former Brisbane Heat captain Chris Lynn has already turned his back on the Big Bash League, signing for next year’s inaugural ILT20.
Boult was recently named in New Zealand’s squad for an upcoming white-ball tour of the West Indies, which gets underway on Thursday.
“We respect Trent’s position,” NZC chief executive David White said in a statement.
“He’s been completely honest and upfront with us about his reasoning and, while we’re sad to be losing him as a fully-contracted player, he leaves with our best wishes and our sincere thanks.
“Trent’s made a massive contribution to the Black Caps since his Test debut in late 2011 and is now considered one of the best multi-format cricketers in the world. We’re very proud of what he’s achieved.
“We’ve had several conversations and I know Trent understands that, in terms of selection, NZC will continue to make a priority of those players with either central or domestic contracts.”
The ink is dry on Tony Fitzgerald’s report into how corruption is investigated in Queensland, but it remains unclear how the state government will deal with a long list of “additional issues” that weren’t within the inquiry’s terms of reference.
Key points:
The report aims to steer the CCC away from mainly criminal investigations, Professor AJ Brown says
Misconduct law specialist Calvin Gnech says a lack of public hearings was a missed opportunity
Protection for whistleblowers was not covered by the terms of the inquiry and still needs to be addressed, critics say
Mr Fitzgerald, who led the historic Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption 30 years ago, co-chaired the inquiry with retired Supreme Court justice Alan Wilson.
Their findings on rebuilding public trust in the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) were released yesterday.
As the authors noted, the report was “not Fitzgerald 2.0”, and was charged only with examining and reporting on “quite specific aspects” of the CCC’s operations.
The 10 “additional issues” outlined in the report’s appendix include how the CCC should be funded, the need for a clearing house for corruption complaints, and the need for certain legislative reforms.
The report was commissioned by the Queensland government after a string of high-profile failed prosecutions, and the finding by the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee (PCCC) that the CCC had erred in its decision to charge eight Logan City councilors with fraud in 2019.
One of the key recommendations is that fewer police be seconded to the CCC, in favor of training up “civilian investigators” from a range of other professional backgrounds.
Griffith University public policy and law Professor AJ Brown said this was to allow the CCC to pivot away from predominantly criminal prosecutions.
Two of the key recommendations from the report on improving operations in the CCC. (abcnews)
He said there were many instances of corruption and misconduct being raised that did not meet the benchmark of a criminal offence, but nonetheless needed to be stamped out.
“The remedy may not be a criminal prosecution, it might be disciplinary action in relation to individuals, or it might be system reform in relation to procedures and institutions,” he said.
“When the CCC looks at serious misconduct issues that are high corruption risks, like acting in the presence of undisclosed conflicts of interest or alleged favoritism or nepotism, the threshold that’s being used to judge those things is not necessarily simply whether a criminal offense has been committed.”
Professor Brown said the report was not suggesting civilians were better placed to judge corruption matters.
“There’s a range of different disciplines and skills that have to be brought to bear potentially, whether they’re a lawyer, or a police investigator or a forensic accountant or a policy person – they all need to see the big picture of corruption and what’s involved in addressing it and stopping it through all sorts of different angles.
One officer told the inquiry there should be more of a focus on education, rather than police enforcement.(ABC News: Patrick Williams)
“This is potentially a big turning point — not just in Queensland, but for anti-corruption investigations and training right around the country — to actually recognize that we need to have the skills that deal with that full complexity,” Professor Brown said.
Among the 87 submissions that the inquiry received, which were only publicly released when the report was complete, former Queensland police commissioner Bob Atkinson submitted his view that “unless there is clear criminal and/or corrupt activity, an educational approach is better than an aggressive prosecutorial approach”.
Mr Atkinson highlighted the prosecution of police Superintendent Michelle Stenner as an example of what he saw as misuse of the CCC’s powers on telephone intercepts, search warrants and covert methods to gather evidence.
Superintendent Stenner was acquitted of perjury in a retrial in October last year, after initially being prosecuted over allegedly giving false testimony to a CCC hearing in 2017.
Mr Atkinson argued that evidence-gathering techniques should only be used in the most serious matters.
Superintendent Michelle Stenner was acquitted after being charged with giving false testimony to a CCC hearing.(Supplied)
“The Stenner case, which was never more than a HRM [human resource management] matter, is an example of the misuse of such powers [phone intercepts and coercive hearings],” he said.
Lack of public hearings a ‘missed opportunity’
Brisbane-based lawyer Calvin Gnech, who specializes in professional misconduct law, said the inquiry had missed the opportunity to reset the bar for transparency and the CCC.
“Only in recent times have the submissions of everyone been disclosed on the website, so the practical effect is there has been no contradiction to any of the submissions,” Mr Gnech said.
“And we now know that the CCC themselves submitted four separate submissions to the inquiry, and no stakeholder or no community member has been able to contradict those submissions in any way because of the way it was conducted.”
Professor AJ Brown says legislative change to protect whistleblowers is “the unresolved issue.” (Mark Leonardi, ABC News.)
Mr Gnech said Mr Fitzgerald and Mr Wilson should have allowed public hearings as part of the review.
“This was the first reform in regards to corruption that was considered in Queensland since 1989, and ultimately a concerning feature of the whole inquiry that has been disappointing is the lack of any public hearings or transparency in regards to the submissions.
“At the moment, you’ll see the benefit of a public inquiry right here in Queensland by looking at the meticulous way that Commissioner Richards has conducted the inquiry into policing and domestic violence in a public way, to allow for public comment, and contradiction of any statements made by – in that inquiry – the police service or any other stakeholder.
“That’s been denied here in regards to the way the process of the inquiry was conducted, and it’s disappointing,” he said.
“I think looking back on this, for a number of reasons, this may well be a missed opportunity.”
Whistleblower protection still an open question
It’s the areas the CCC report didn’t examine that have attracted a lot of commentary, including those outlined in its appendix.
Professor Brown said the key unresolved issue remained how whistleblowers were to be protected under the Public Interest Disclosure Act.
“The parliamentary committee separately recommended that there needed to be a review of the … whistleblower protection laws and the government accepted that as a separate recommendation,” Professor Brown said.
“So I think everyone has been waiting for the government to say how it’s going to progress that review separately — it was never included in the terms of reference for this inquiry.”
Professor Brown said a legislative review remained critical because the commission of inquiry was a result of the CCC’s attempted intervention in support of the whistleblower who made the original Logan Council corruption allegations.
“So that’s sort of the unresolved issue at the heart of this,” he said.
“As part of the wash-up, it’s going to be very important that the Queensland government indicate how that review [of the Public Interest Disclosure Act] is going to happen so that the true root causes that really began this whole saga can actually be addressed.”
Rudy Giuliani was ordered by an Atlanta-area judge Tuesday to appear in person on August 17 in front of the special purpose grand jury investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies violated the law in their efforts to flip the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Lawyers for Giuliani, who served as an attorney for Trump during the 2020 election, are seeking to delay his appearance – originally scheduled for Tuesday – saying he shouldn’t fly after he underwent heart stent surgery last month.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney proposed that Giuliani explore land-based travel options.
“John Madden drove all the way over the country in his big bus from stadium to stadium so one thing we need to explore is whether Mr. Giuliani could get here without jeopardizing his recovery and his health, on a train or on a bus or whatever it would be,” McBurney said during the hearing.
Attorney Bill Thomas, who is representing Giuliani, told CNN after the hearing they are going to “explore all the options” for Giuliani’s travel, and that they would plan to be “back here” on the 17th.
“If the court orders that he travel by Greyhound to Atlanta, we are going to do what the court orders him to do,” Thomas said during the hearing.
It’s still not clear if Giuliani is a target in the grand jury investigation. The subject came up briefly at the hearing when Giuliani’s lawyer asked, but the judge said that the prosecutors didn’t need to immediately respond.
McBurney signed off on the subpoena in early July, saying that Giuliani was a “necessary and material witness” in the special grand jury’s investigation.
The Fulton County District Attorney’s office asked the judge to compel Giuliani to testify and said they would “provide alternate transportation including “bus or train” to ensure his appearance before the special grand jury, according to a court filing.
The District Attorney’s office declined offers from Giuliani to appear virtually or wait until he is medically cleared to fly, according to court filings. On Tuesday, the DA’s office said they had “no interest” in Giuliani appearing any other way than but in person.
Giuliani met with Georgia state legislators three times in December 2020 in the aftermath of the presidential election, twice in person and once remotely. During the meetings, Giuliani spread conspiracy theories about widespread irregularities and fraud in the state. Among the false claims, Giuliani accused two Atlanta election workers of smuggling fraudulent Biden ballots in suitcases.
Numerous state and federal officials have debunked Giuliani’s claims of fraud in Georgia, a state that Joe Biden won by nearly 12,000 votes.
Byung “Bjay” Pak, the former top federal prosecutor for the Northern District of Georgia, was among those who testified before the US House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection that Giuliani’s claims of election fraud in Fulton County had been investigated by federal authorities and found to be untrue.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has detailed the far-reaching scope of the investigation, saying that it includes potential “solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”
The Kia Sorento seven-seat family SUV has begun preparing for its mid-life facelift – as long waiting times for the current model remain.
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the facelifted 2024 Kia Sorento large family SUV has hit the road in South Korea, ahead of its global launch next year.
While the current Kia Sorento has only been in Australian showrooms since late 2020, Kia usually updates its vehicles after three years – an indication the mid-life update for the Sorento will arrive some time in 2023.
Australian launch timing is yet to be confirmed, but if previous model-cycle timing is followed, the updated Sorento may be in Australian showrooms by late next year.
Photos published by ShortsCar (via The Korean Car Blog) suggest the facelifted Kia Sorento will draw inspiration from the car maker’s upcoming full-size EV9 electric SUV, with new vertically-stacked LED headlights akin to concept and production versions of the electric vehicle.
Other design changes are hard to discern below the thick camouflage cladding fitted to this South Korean test car, though its alloy wheel design appears to be new.
Few details have emerged on what other changes will be made for the facelifted Kia Sorento, though The Korean Car Blog speculates on mild engine tweaks and updated interior technology.
Within Kia and sister brand Hyundai’s model ranges, new technology fitted to other models – but not yet fitted to the current Sorento – includes a larger 12.3-inch center touchscreen, as seen in the updated Hyundai Palisade (up from 10.25 inches in the current Sorento ).
The new Hyundai Ioniq 6 electric car is offered with a newer version of the Sorento’s Remote Smart Parking Assist system, which not only allows drivers use the key fob to move the car forwards or backwards when standing beside it – as in the current Sorento – but to remotely enter and exit parallel, perpendicular and diagonal parking spaces.
Above: The current Kia Sorento.
The Kia EV9 electric SUV is also set to debut upgraded ‘Level 3’ semi-autonomous driving technology upon its launch early next year – but it’s unclear if this will be offered on the petrol and diesel-powered Sorento.
Whether changes will be made under the bonnet remains to be seen. The current Sorento range in Australia is available with a choice of a 3.5-litre petrol V6, 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbo diesel, and hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains based around a 1.6-litre turbo petrol engine.
the 2024 Kia Sorento is expected to be unveiled in full in the first half of next year – ahead of Australian arrivals as soon as late next year, as a 2024 model.
However, Kia may diverge from its typical launch schedule – with a facelift after three years – given the current combination of overwhelming demand and restricted supply for today’s Sorento, which have seen wait times push beyond 12 months in Australia for top-of-the- range models.
Alex Misoyannis has been writing about cars since 2017, when he started his own website, Redline. He contributed for Drive in 2018, before joining CarAdvice in 2019, becoming a regular contributing journalist within the news team in 2020. Cars have played a central role throughout Alex’s life, from flicking through car magazines as a young age, to growing up around performance vehicles in a car-loving family.
Yeah, there have been official Attack on Titan video games, but they’ve never really managed to fully capture the speed and scale of the show, so one indie developer figured he’d try and make his own and release it for free. Which he has done, and then some.
Swammy details the story of his little project in this video, explaining that what started as a fun little experiment in early 2021 blew-up after his girlfriend convinced him to post a short gameplay video on TikTok. An overwhelmingly positive response inspired Swammy to continue development on the demo, building on a foundation of swinging through the city by adding first some Titans to go up against, and then — after one disastrous mix-up — a co-op multiplayer mode.
By January 2022, the game was looking pretty good!
As you can see, the main appeal of this game vs the official releases is the swinging system, which in Swammy’s game is a lot faster and freer. If you’ve played the recent spider-man games, for example, you’ll be pretty much at home here, especially if you play this game in third-person (it’s playable from either first or third-person perspectives).
By the middle of 2022 Swammy’s project had racked up millions of views on social media and hundreds of thousands of downloads. And now it’s blowing up all over again because he’s announced that the whole thing is getting a revamp as he tries to port it over to Unreal Engine 5:
This guy built his own free to play game based off Attack On Titan in a little over a year… you can fight titans, train, sandbox and speedrun
If you want to play the game as it exists today, you most definitely can, with download links available here. Note that while there are versions available for both PC and Android, the PC edition is the one getting all the work, with the Android one now at its “final build”, after “constant harassment and threats” gave Swammy “zero reason to continue working on it, for my own mental health”.
It’s super easy to download and start playing — though there’s a video here if you need some help — and having been messing around with it this morning, I can understand a lot of the hype from fans. Sure, it’s pretty rough around the edges, and stuff like the interface is as barebones as it gets, but allowing for the fact this is a one-man job, and how fun the basic act of swinging around and stabbing things is, I think it’s really cool.
Major athletic footwear brand Reebok is carving out its share of sales by focusing on all-white styles.
“Across Australia and New Zealand we’re seeing an overwhelming desire for clean, stripped-back silhouettes with authentic tie-backs to brand heritage,” says Ash Sampson, brand director for Reebok Pacific.
Paparazzo photographs of euphoria actor Sydney Sweeney, supermodel Gigi Hadid, singer Joe Jonas and Emily Ratajkowski have helped drive demand for Reebok’s all-white Classic Leather styles, first launched in 1983 and the Club C85 silhouette.
“In spring, Reebok will be placing an emphasis on the Classic Leather franchise,” Sampson says. “Consumers are choosing wearability over flamboyancy, which has shifted in recent times.”
Sydney-based entrepreneur Parag Sawant is banking on the continued success of all-white styles, having launched the sneaker brand Monochrome in 2019. Sawant began manufacturing sneakers in Italy for the Australian market after spotting the success of minimalist designs from the brand Common Projects.
“I was trying to find something more in tune with the Australian lifestyle,” Sawant says. “It had to be understated and less flashy. Brands like Givenchy and Saint Laurent were doing premium sneakers, but they were more ostentatious.
“I wanted something sleek that wasn’t a pair of Vans.”
Monochrome offers white-on-white sneakers for $435, but the most successful style has been plain white leather on top of a pale grey, full rubber sole.
“It still has that premium look that people are looking for. We are seeing steady growth as people recognize them as investment pieces.”
There’s also good news for people looking for sneakers to wear outside, rather than keep pristine in boxes to trade.
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“The next big trend will be the great outdoors, with traditional labels like Salomon crushing it in design and with the Paris shows, such as Dior, very connected to the outdoors.”
So, your choices this spring are reformed dad sneakers, technicolour styles basic white or mountaineering motifs. Choose anything in between this spring, and you may as well be wearing chisel-toe black lace-ups or nude high heels.
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Capetown: Former international cricket umpire Rudi Koertzen died on Tuesday in a car accident in South Africa, his family said.
Koertzen, 73, was on the International Cricket Council’s elite panel of umpires for eight years and officiated in 331 matches, a record at the time of his retirement in 2010 that has since been surpassed by Pakistan’s Aleem Dar.
Rudi Koertzen during his last Test match in 2010. The South African former umpire has died aged 73.Credit:AP
“It is a very big loss, foremost for his family and then for South Africa and cricket,” Dar was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
“I stood in so many games with him. He was not only very good as an umpire but also an excellent colleague, always very cooperative on the field and also always willing to help off the field.
“Because of the way he was, he was also well-respected by players.”
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Koertzen was famous for his unique method of giving a batter out, where he would slowly raise his left arm with his finger pointing at the batter. It became known as the “slow finger of death.” He was one of cricket’s most respected umpires.
“The passing of this titan is a sad loss for the game,” said Cricket South Africa CEO Pholetsi Moseki, who paid tribute to Koertzen’s “selfless dedication and commitment.”
South Africa’s Algoa FM radio station reported that Koertzen and three other people were killed in a head-on collision near the town of Riversdale in the Western Cape province. Koertzen was returning to his home in the Eastern Cape province after playing in a golf tournament when the crash happened, the station said.
A small plane made a crash landing and burst into flames on the 91 Freeway in Riverside County Tuesday afternoon in a dramatic incident that was captured on video.
Fortunately, no one was hurt.
The crash-landing happened at 12:31 pm in the eastbound lanes of the freeway near Lincoln Avenue, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Dramatic video obtained by KTLA shows the single-engine Piper Cherokee dropping from the sky, hitting the freeway, and then leaving a trail of burning fuel as it slides toward the sound barrier.
“The pilot claims to have experienced possible engine failure on their final descent to Corona Municipal Airport,” CHP Capt. Levi Miller said.
The plane also hit a truck carrying three people.
Incredibly, both the pilot and passenger on the plane and all three occupants in the truck escaped unharmed.
“(We’re) very fortunate today that the traffic was light, and the pilot appears to have made some good landing navigation that avoided what could have been a very bad tragedy,” Miller said.
Eastbound lanes of the 91 Freeway were closed for several hours as authorities investigated the crash and removed the wreckage.
A traveler has detailed the shocking moment she was “kicked off” a Jetstar flight after being mistakenly told she had a “dangerous” item in her checked suitcase.
Clare Vertannes was in her seat ready for takeoff from Sydney to Perth shortly after 12pm on April 10 when a flight attendant told her she could no longer fly with the budget airline.
WATCH VIDEO ABOVE: Clare shares her Jetstar debacle story
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The 26-year-old event coordinator claims she started to “panic” when she was ordered off the flight without any explanation.
“I kept asking the flight attendant what was going on and I essentially started to freak out. Many thoughts started to rush through my head at this point,” Clare tells 7Life.
“I felt beyond confused and in disbelief because I had no idea what was going on.”
Clare Vertannes was traveling from Sydney to Perth on April 10. Credit: Clare Vertannes
Eventually, she was told there was a “dangerous” battery pack in her checked luggage – but Clare insisted hers was in her carry-on handbag.
“I knew my battery pack was not in my suitcase because it was in my handbag, which I proceeded to take out and show her,” Clare claims.
“After I showed her my battery pack and tried to tell her that there had been a mistake, she proceeded not to acknowledge what I was saying and kept repeating that I needed to collect my suitcase from baggage claim.”
Realizing she would miss her existing flight, Clare – who was visiting Sydney on a work trip – asked whether she was going to be put on the next plane to Perth.
‘angry and annoyed’
“The flight attendant said to me… that Jetstar will not be paying for another seat for me,” she claims.
“She said it was my fault that I had held up all these people on the plane and that I, in fact, had to compensate them because I had held up the scheduled flight.
“Again, I was in disbelief and this is when I started to feel angry and annoyed because she was blaming me and not giving me the benefit of the doubt.”
A traveler claimed she was ‘kicked off’ a Jetstar flight after being mistakenly told she had a ‘dangerous’ item in her checked suitcase. Credit: Clare Vertannes
Clare says she was left in tears by the time she arrived at baggage claim.
As she made her way to the counter, she was allegedly told her checked suitcase did not contain any “dangerous” item.
“The staff member said, ‘I’m so sorry, there’s been a miscommunication… there is nothing wrong with your bags – I left the desk to go to the bathroom and came back to this mess, I’m so, so sorry’,” Clare recalls.
“Honestly, I was hoping there was something in my suitcase so this drama wasn’t for nothing.”
‘Absolute s*** show’
Furious, Clare says she started to “raise her voice” because she was “upset and emotional” over the debacle.
“I got very angry and started to vent to her about how ridiculous this is and how it was an absolute s*** show,” she says.
“But then I started apologizing to the staff member because I knew it wasn’t her fault.
“After all that, I took a moment to breathe and said, ‘Ok, well, it is what it is, what’s the plan now? Can I get on the next flight?’ She said, ‘There’s no more flights to Perth until tomorrow’.
“I then told her that I needed to be on a flight back to Perth today and that I’d sit and wait for a flight – and that’s what I did.”
Clare was offered a free Qantas flight on the same day – but had to wait seven hours. Credit: Clare Vertannes
After waiting for an hour, Clare was offered a free Qantas flight to Perth on the same day – but she needed to wait seven hours.
“Qantas had a spare seat and they had secured it for me. No upgrades or compensation – just the seat,” she says.
During the wait, she tried to leave her suitcase at the airport so she could return to the city – but was told she needed to pay an extra $50 for storage.
“When they were asking me to pay to put my luggage somewhere after the whole order, I was over it,” she says.
“I decided to lug my suitcase back to the city. I ended up catching a cab because the trains weren’t working.”
‘I was shook’
In a shock turn of events, Clare received an email from Jetstar saying she was charged $10 for a pie under her seat number – despite her having been kicked off the flight.
“I remember sitting in my (Qantas) seat, thinking what else could possibly happen? And then I get an email from Jetstar. It goes: ‘Thank you so much for your pie purchase on your recent Jetstar flight’,” she says.
“I was shook… Someone on my flight had charged a foot to my seat and I got that invoice.
“Honestly, I was just in disbelief. I was thinking, ‘Is this real? Are they having me for a laugh?’ I was done at this point.”
Jetstar offered a refund and voucher, left, but charged $10 for a pie to her seat – despite having been kicked off the flight. Credit: Clare Vertannes
After the mishap, Jetstar offered her a $116.22 cash refund and a $350.78 voucher.
However, Clare is demanding a full cash refund of $467 and a $50 reimbursement for the taxi fare into the city.
“They didn’t give me the compensation I asked for, but they sent me a voucher to ‘compensate’ for the flight I was kicked off,” she says.
“I don’t know why they bothered giving me a voucher – it’s not like I will be flying with them again.”
Jetstar responds
In a letter to Clare, a Jetstar employee explained why the airline was unable to offer her a “monetary refund”.
“I hope you’d appreciate that we can only return something to you in its original form,” the letter read.
“Since you have paid for this booking using a voucher and a credit card payment, we can only process a voucher equivalent to the amount paid via voucher and a cash refund equivalent to the amount paid via credit card.
“We are unable to process a cash refund for a booking which wasn’t paid in cash in the first place.”
Clare demanded a full cash refund – but Jetstar has since declined. Credit: Clare Vertannes
The letter added: “We have assessed your claim in line with all relevant laws and conventions and I appreciate how unhappy you are with this outcome.
“However, we’re comfortable that we’ve met our obligations under applicable law by providing this outcome to you.
“We will respect your opinion and decision on this matter however our position remains the same.”
A Jetstar spokesman told 7NEWS.com.au: “We sincerely apologize for any misunderstanding and are looking into what took place.”
Four months on from the flight drama, Clare is speaking out about the ordeal on TikTok.
“Now that I’ve overcome my PTSD, I can finally share to you all the trauma that Jetstar gave me,” she said in a now-viral video with more than 700,000 views.
She adds: “I’m glad I shared my experience though because everyone is starting to share their horror stories too and hopefully something will change on how budget airlines treat their customers.”
