By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A MAN’S jail term has been extended by six months after he pleaded guilty to thefts of cars and property totalling about $80,000 while on appeal bail.
Simon Matthew White, 48, pleaded guilty in Dandenong Magistrates’ Court to stealing a VW van and $23,310 of electrical equipment, including 42 televisions and 21 Bluetooth-speaker sets, from a South Yarra serviced-apartment building in late November.
At the 23 May hearing by video-link, White admitted stealing two air-conditioners from a Sandown hotel, as well as a deliverer’s van with the driver’s wallet, phone and four airport luggage items in Noble Park North.
At the time of the offences, White was wanted for skipping an appeal hearing at the County Court in July against a 15-month jail term plus a two-year community corrections order for similar offending.
On 27 November White was arrested as he loaded the air-conditioners into the VW van at the Sandown hotel – where he and a co-accused had hired a room.
Police seized two clear bags of the drug ice, $1350 cash, rings and a mobile phone from White.
In his hotel room they found several IDs and phones which were believed to be stolen from vehicles, $2284 cash and number plates.
In the van, there was a stolen printer and scanner with blank cards believed to make fake IDs as well as the four stolen items of travel luggage.
The other stolen delivery van was later recovered in Mulgrave, with seven grams of ice in the map pocket and seven stolen bunk beds in the back.
White was also charged with carrying a prohibited eight-centimetre flick knife and one gram of ice at Box Hill shopping centre in July.
Defence lawyer Stephanie Keogh-Barnes told the court that the accused had “reasonable” rehabilitation prospects.
The accused’s offending, which spanned 2004-11 and 2014-15, was related to his drug use, including amphetamines and “injecting” substances, Ms Keogh-Barnes told the court.
The accused went clean for several years in between after he and his partner went into rehab, then went to church and ran a successful heating and cooling business.
The couple’s relapse led to the loss of White’s business, the couple’s home and White started re-offending in 2014 to support his habit, Ms Keogh-Barnes said.
Magistrate Jack Vandersteen refused the defence’s argument for a fully concurrent jail term.
“Your offending is just too serious. When you didn’t attend the County Court appeal and committed these offences there has to be a consequence as well.”
White was sentenced to 12 months’ jail with six months served concurrently with his current prison term.
White will begin a two-year CCO upon release from jail in mid-May 2017.
