Sydney private school students ‘get married’ to bypass Covid restrictions

Two schoolboys from Sydney pretended to get married so that they could have their end of year prom after-party within the Covid-19 restrictions.

According to a story in The Courier Mail, first published by The Daily Telegraph in Australia, the teenagers, who are believed to be 16-years-old, discovered a “loophole” in the rules, which say that you can have over 100 people at a venue for a gathering if you are celebrating a wedding.

Under current restrictions in Sydney, people who are having parties are only allowed to have 20 people indoors and 30 people outdoors.

Meanwhile weddings can hold 150 guests if people manage to maintain social distancing.

The “ceremony” was held at the family houses of one of the boys without his parents’ knowledge while they were on holiday. However, after images of the pupils holding a marriage certificate went viral, their parents spotted the post and returned home.

A father of one of the boys told the newspaper the marriage was not legally binding and described it as a “a silly teenage idea”.

He added: “We shut down the planned private celebratory event as soon as we found out about it, and thankfully, nobody was put at risk.

“Furthermore, we immediately engaged a security firm to ensure that if anyone tried to attend, they would be turned away — and no-one did actually turn up.

“Our son has apologised to our family, as well as to the other families who were involved, and we have made it clear to him how important compliance with the coronavirus restrictions is.”

Friends told the publication that the relationship between the two boys is platonic, and they decided to “get married” as it was the only way they could have the party.

The party isn’t the only gathering that’s taken place during in Australia during lockdown.

Australia’s national police told The Independent an “internal recruit gathering” took place at a training college in Canberra in April.

It took place at the Australian Federal Police College, where all the residents were AFP recruits in training, according to the police spokesperson.

An investigation was undertaken by the AFP.

Australia currently has recorded 27,760 cases of the virus. A total of 907 people have died after contracting Covid-19, which is one of the lowest death rates in the world.