A driver of a stolen ute laden with stolen electric scooters who repeatedly rammed a police car and injured an officer in Springvale South has avoided a full mandatory jail term.
After a successful stint in drug rehab, Ashley Bowley, 46, was given credit for making positive, substantial steps towards reform by a Victorian County Court sentencing judge.
The father of four and grandfather pleaded guilty to charges including aggravated recklessly exposing an emergency worker to risk by driving and recklessly damaging an emergency service vehicle.
The two offences carry mandatory jail unless there’s substantial and compelling circumstances.
On 27 December 2022, Bowley stole five boxes of electric scooters worth $30,000 from a Springvale business’s loading bay and placed them in the tray of a stolen Ford Ranger.
The unlicenced Bowley was later spotted by police while he rode one of the unregistered scooters down the wrong side of the road and without a helmet in Springvale South.
When told to stop, Bowley went inside a home’s double-swing gate, got in the ute and reversed it towards an officer.
An officer smashed one of the ute’s windows with a baton as she yelled for him to stop. OC spray was also deployed to no effect.
Bowley reversed seven times into a police car that blockaded the driveway, each time inching the police vehicle further onto the road.
Eventually he forced his way through a gap, destroying the metal gate and brick fence – with a flying part of the gate deeply cutting a police officer’s knee.
Bowley was later reportedly driving erratically through Parkmore shopping centre’s car park – including overtaking another car in the entrance lane.
After mounting a kerb and crashing into a pole, Bowley then took off on foot. In the abandoned ute, police found a magazine for a gun.
A week or so later in early January 2023, he was arrested after being found with 1,4-butanediol, cannabis and meth and $550 cash in a satchel in Ashburton.
At the time, he was on a community correction order.
In sentencing on 17 November, Judge Elizabeth Briner found special circumstances to not impose mandatory jail.
This was through a causal link between Bowley’s ADHD and PTSD with his offending.
His PTSD was as a result of significant abuse, violence and trauma as a child and adult.
A psychologist reported that when Bowley saw the police vehicle, he was driven by panic and an “exaggerated flight response” – caused by past interactions with law enforcement including an assault and police shooting.
On the other hand, he had an extensive and persistent criminal history across three Australian states, 17 years and several prison stints. As well as abusing drugs over three decades.
However, Bowley was bailed for a successful 16-week stay in residential drug rehab, which gave cause for “cautious optimism”, the judge said.
In that time, he “couldn’t have done more”, earned an extension of his rehab program, cleared all drug screenings and rebuilt his broken family relationships.
Bowley was sentenced to 111 days jail, which he has already served, with a two-year community correction order.
The supervised CCO includes 200 hours of unpaid work and drug and mental health treatment, as well as judicial monitoring.
