By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A Dandenong burglar with a self-confessed drug addiction has pleaded guilty to ransacking $19,000 from self-serve checkouts at a supermarket, a court heard.
Steele Meier, 22, and an unknown accomplice used crowbars to break in and steal the cash from the registers at a Coles supermarket in Reservoir early on 29 July.
Two hours later, Meier was also involved in jemmying into a Woolworths supermarket in Hadfield. He and an unknown person pried open a cigarettes cabinet and stole its contents.
He was arrested that day during a police raid of a premises in Dandenong. The court heard that Meier was bitten by a police dog during his arrest and required hospital treatment.
Police seized Meier’s phone, $1300 cash, one point of methamphetamine and clothing that was similar to what was observed on CCTV at the burglaries.
The two burgled supermarkets were part of the phone’s search history, police told the court.
Meier was one of eight offenders arrested as part of a police investigation into burglaries involving thefts from self-serve registers and ATMs in May-July, Dandenong Magistrates’ Court heard.
A defence lawyer told the court on 24 September that Meier’s ‘ice’ addiction underpinned his offending.
The lawyer conceded Meier “didn’t do a great job” on his previous community corrections order but argued for another CCO to help reduce Meier’s relapse into drug use and offending.
A CCO with “his rehabilitation in mind”, such as drug, mental health and community work programs, would better protect the community in the long term, the lawyer said.
In sentencing, Magistrate Rodney Crisp noted that Meier was a young person but a “young person with significant prior convictions”.
The targeted, planned nature of the burglaries as well as the need for Meier to “dry out” from his ice abuse justified his “removal from the community”.
Meier was jailed for nine months, fined $1500 and ordered to pay $19,000 restitution to Coles.
Though not charged with driving matters, Meier was disqualified from driving for 18 months due to his drug addiction.
That period was a “bare minimum” for Meier’s rehabilitation, Mr Crisp noted.
“He has got a problem with the worst possible drugs in the worst possible way.
“It’s a matter of road safety.”
