Photo by: Wikimedia Commons

A couple residing in Melbourne, Australia faces criminal charges following a controversial armed robbery where a woman used a burqa to conceal her identity.

Felicity Chafer-Smith and her boyfriend Clinton Phillips, both armed with a knife, held up the Croydon Subway restaurant and stole some cash from the till. The couple was alleged to have conspired in a series of robberies over the past few days, in which they unlawfully took properties and cash by force in a jewelry store, a Shell service station, and another Subway store.

Chafer-Smith, 21, and Phillips, 38, were reported to have used scarves to conceal their identities in all their previous robberies. However, in their latest act of burglary, Chafer-Smith covered her face with the use of the cultural garment burqa.

Mayor of the Maroondah City, Tony Dib, blamed Senator Pauline Hanson’s burqa stunt for having incited the use of the cultural garment in the recent robbery.

“Because of the silly things that Pauline Hanson did in the Senate, you’ll probably see a lot of it happening. People, instead of wearing a hat or a helmet or a mask, they’ll be wearing a burqa,” Dib said.

Hanson recently graced the international news following her provocative act of wearing a burqa during Parliament sessions to “prove a point” about the urgency to ban the religious garment to uphold “national security.”

Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek said that Hanson’s burqa stunt will continue to have negative implications in all of Australia for various reasons.

At present, Phillips is being held in police custody and is scheduled to appear before the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court this Friday, while Chafer-Smith is still at large.

The cultural garment has been previously used in robberies both in Australia and overseas but it does not happen often. Hanson hit back at the allegations during a press conference but the only other occasion that she could recall a burqa being used to commit crimes was way back in 2010.