A GLEN Waverley woman charged over one of last year’s biggest drug busts in the Ballarat region has been ordered to undergo a compulsory “intimate” forensic procedure.
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Sih-Yu Wu, 32, who is in Australia on a student visa, appeared briefly in Ballarat Magistrates Court yesterday where she faced a string of charges stemming from the bust on September 3.
Previous court appearances heard police discovered an elaborate hydroponic cannabis set-up at an Alfredton home, consisting of almost 200 mature plants.
A lawyer for Wu, who is on bail, said the police application for the procedure was not opposed because it might help his client’s case.
“We understand that it (the forensic procedure) is required to facilitate the investigation,” her lawyer said.
The lawyer said Wu maintained she had nothing to do with the drugs.
Wu’s charges include cultivating a commercial quantity of cannabis, trafficking a commercial quantity of cannabis, possessing a commercial quantity of cannabis and stealing electricity.
Wu was allegedly being paid up to $600 a day to provide “intimate relations” to a man police are still hunting over the drug set-up.
Police allege Wu met the man while working as an illegal sex worker at a Melbourne brothel.
Court documents allege Wu was working for the man and that Wu had never been registered as a legal sex worker.
Granting the application yesterday, magistrate Cynthia Toose said it was “in the interests of justice” the procedure be done.
Wu will re-appear in Ballarat Magistrates Court on March 19 for a committal hearing.
