Premium Content
Subscriber only Whitsunday residents breathed a collective sigh of relief as the clock struck 12 last night, bidding good riddance to 2020. But last year wasn t all hand sanitiser and social distancing. Here are some of the biggest stories that made headlines in 2020.
Curious find at Bowen crime scene After numerous police specialists spent hours investigating reports of a body found wrapped in a blanket near Bowen, the investigation ended with an odd find. Specialists from the district and local Bowen Police officers attended the scene on a walking track off the Bruce Highway near Bowen on May 19. They began a land search after a member of the public phoned police believing they had discovered a dead body.
Premium Content
Subscriber only
From skinned crocodiles to major drug busts, these were the biggest crimes that rocked the Whitsundays in 2020.
Absolute croc
A man took a crocodile to a motel, skinned it, chopped it up and then ate it.
For that he copped fines amounting to almost $10,000.
Paul Andrew Isaacson, from Cannonvale, pleaded guilty in Proserpine Magistrates Court to taking a protected animal and making a false or misleading statement to a conservation officer, after he lied about it.
The court heard the Islands Inn Motel owner, in Mandalay, saw the 47-year-old cutting up the body of a crocodile, on September 18, 2018.
Premium Content
Subscriber only
A man attempting to escape police after a street fight was tasered in Airlie Beach last week.
Officers were conducting regular patrols of the Safe Night Precinct when they were called to the incident in the early hours of December 19.
Whitsunday Police shift supervisor Matthew Johns said three people were involved in a fight on the main street.
He said while the cause of the fight was unclear, a 21-year-old man tried to escape police when they intervened.
The man was then tasered and arrested.
He will appear before Proserpine Magistrates Court.
More Stories
They again left the house and the woman asked the Cannonvale man to leave her alone. The court heard Venn then spoke to a person who lived in a granny flat on the property, saying Look, isn t she mental? I just want to talk to her . The woman told Venn she was recording him, so he went to take the phone from her hand, lunged forward and tackled her to the ground bruising her upper thighs. The court heard he held her arms and wrists, preventing her from escaping. Venn pleaded guilty to one count each of common assault and breaching bail.
 Karimram learned his fate at Proserpine Magistrates Court where he pleaded guilty to five charges including driving without due care and attention, drink-driving and failing to stop at a crash. Police prosecutor Senior Constable Sarah Rowe said police were called to a crash near the intersection of Beach Rd and Coral Esplanade about 2am on October 10. Sen-Constable Rowe said members of the public were giving first aid to Karimram, who was in the driver s seat of the vehicle that had left the road and come to rest in a garden bed. The court heard there was no one else in the car but Karimram was unconscious and had cuts on his head when police arrived.