Teh One Who Knocks
08-19-2013, 12:14 PM
Josh Robertson - The Courier-Mail (Australia)
http://i.imgur.com/hiKd0am.jpg
SEX in the city has taken an unexpected toll on a country call-girl whose ill-fated stint in a Brisbane bordello came to a very public end.
Former elite sprinter Emilie Welch made headlines from Gympie to the state capital when she was fined $200 by a Brisbane Magistrate for faking a sexual health check to work in Cleo's On Nile last year.
But the 23-year-old now faces having to pay almost 100 times that in fines for unpaid road tolls while she worked at the Woolloongabba brothel.
The State Penalties Enforcement Registry has stung her with a bill of more than $19,000, mostly late fees slapped on less than $200 in unpaid tolls, mainly from the Clem7 tunnel.
Ms Welch, once the fastest Queensland woman her age, says she sees no way of running down that debt now she is a full-time student with $200 in the bank.
"I'm not going to pay, I can't pay for that. That's ridiculous," she said, adding she was trying to prove her financial hardship to SPER and work out a payment plan.
Ms Welch began work as a $500-an-hour private escort in 2011 after scoliosis, a medical condition that leads to a curved spine, cruelled her running career.
http://i.imgur.com/1TFaA8T.jpg
Despite lucrative pay - earning up to $4000 a night with high-flying clients - she said her experience of sex work would lead her to tell other young women, "don't go there".
"There's a lot of people in the industry that can hurt you and for someone very trusting and naive, you can get hurt and taken for a ride," she said.
"It started off, I got a bad injury, I got diagnosed with serious scoliosis and I couldn't run anymore and then I moved to Brisbane and started partying.
"I got pretty depressed about losing my career, I suppose, and just got mixed up with the wrong crowd basically and I made some silly choices."
She said she had been oblivious to the fines as her personal life unravelled amid mounting debts and her bankruptcy in February.
SPER fines are among the few debts bankrupts must still pay.
"At the time, I wasn't even opening my mail, I was that distraught about everything that was happening," she said.
"I showed my mum and I was like, 'What the heck do I do?' Then I cried. She's been the one communicating with (SPER)."
Ms Welch says she quit the sex industry after her court case, taking a job as a disability support worker in The Park high-security unit at Wacol.
She now studies, works part-time in her mother's pub north of Gympie and is in a relationship with Darcy Nixon-Smith, a prominent bull rider who recovered from a broken neck in 2011.
Her younger sister Sonya, whose sexual health certificate she unlawfully passed off as her own when they both worked at Cleo's, is listed as working at a Sunshine Coast brothel.
Brisbane City Council figures show 303 people, or 0.55 per cent of drivers fined over Clem7 trips, had more than 41 unpaid tolls in 2012-13, 34 of them racking up 100-plus.
http://i.imgur.com/hiKd0am.jpg
SEX in the city has taken an unexpected toll on a country call-girl whose ill-fated stint in a Brisbane bordello came to a very public end.
Former elite sprinter Emilie Welch made headlines from Gympie to the state capital when she was fined $200 by a Brisbane Magistrate for faking a sexual health check to work in Cleo's On Nile last year.
But the 23-year-old now faces having to pay almost 100 times that in fines for unpaid road tolls while she worked at the Woolloongabba brothel.
The State Penalties Enforcement Registry has stung her with a bill of more than $19,000, mostly late fees slapped on less than $200 in unpaid tolls, mainly from the Clem7 tunnel.
Ms Welch, once the fastest Queensland woman her age, says she sees no way of running down that debt now she is a full-time student with $200 in the bank.
"I'm not going to pay, I can't pay for that. That's ridiculous," she said, adding she was trying to prove her financial hardship to SPER and work out a payment plan.
Ms Welch began work as a $500-an-hour private escort in 2011 after scoliosis, a medical condition that leads to a curved spine, cruelled her running career.
http://i.imgur.com/1TFaA8T.jpg
Despite lucrative pay - earning up to $4000 a night with high-flying clients - she said her experience of sex work would lead her to tell other young women, "don't go there".
"There's a lot of people in the industry that can hurt you and for someone very trusting and naive, you can get hurt and taken for a ride," she said.
"It started off, I got a bad injury, I got diagnosed with serious scoliosis and I couldn't run anymore and then I moved to Brisbane and started partying.
"I got pretty depressed about losing my career, I suppose, and just got mixed up with the wrong crowd basically and I made some silly choices."
She said she had been oblivious to the fines as her personal life unravelled amid mounting debts and her bankruptcy in February.
SPER fines are among the few debts bankrupts must still pay.
"At the time, I wasn't even opening my mail, I was that distraught about everything that was happening," she said.
"I showed my mum and I was like, 'What the heck do I do?' Then I cried. She's been the one communicating with (SPER)."
Ms Welch says she quit the sex industry after her court case, taking a job as a disability support worker in The Park high-security unit at Wacol.
She now studies, works part-time in her mother's pub north of Gympie and is in a relationship with Darcy Nixon-Smith, a prominent bull rider who recovered from a broken neck in 2011.
Her younger sister Sonya, whose sexual health certificate she unlawfully passed off as her own when they both worked at Cleo's, is listed as working at a Sunshine Coast brothel.
Brisbane City Council figures show 303 people, or 0.55 per cent of drivers fined over Clem7 trips, had more than 41 unpaid tolls in 2012-13, 34 of them racking up 100-plus.