Australians donate online to pay woman's fine for stealing tampons
Sydney (dpa) - Online donors gave more than 2,600 Australian dollars (1,890 US dollars) Friday to pay a woman's fine for stealing a pack of tampons from a petrol station in Western Australia.
Police fined the woman 500 dollars Thursday under a new state law allowing officers to give people who commit minor offences a fine rather than sending them to court.
Police in Coolgardie, 555 kilometres east of Perth, tweeted news of the fine as part of a community relations drive, but outrage quickly spread across the internet.
"It's a crime in the first place to charge $6.75 for tampons. What kind of desperation does a woman find herself in that she steals a packet of tampons?" women's support group coordinator Amy Rust told the news website WA Today.
Rust started a crowd-funding page to help the woman and the fund reached its 500-dollar target in just three hours, she said.
She is asking police to help pass the money to the woman.
The original police tweet was no longer visible on the @CoolgardiePolTwitter feed.
A Western Australia police spokesman said the woman's fine was high because she had failed to appear in court on a previous occasion.
State Police Minister Liza Harvey defended the fine saying stealing of any kind was an offence for which the community has no tolerance.
Earlier this year in Australia, an online petition calling for an end to a tax on tampons garnered over 100,000 signatures, and drew the attention of the finance minister and prime minister.
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