A 30-year-old man faced Mudgee Local Court for a string of offences stemming from three different occasions when police spoke to him and each time he had something to conceal.
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Alexander Donald McRae of Robertson Street, Mudgee, was fined a total of $1870 and disqualified for six months.
At about 8am on Wednesday, May 30, 2018, highway patrol police clocked his vehicle travelling at 123km/h on the Lue Road at Mudgee.
When they stopped him they noticed the utility was missing all panels at the front end and a check of its registration showed that it expired on February 20 and was subsequently cancelled on May 21.
McRae admitted he didn’t have a licence and a check of his identity revealed he was disqualified in December 2017.
A baseball bat and knife were noticed on the passenger seat and a search of the vehicle found four knives and eight live .22 bullets, the latter of which he had without a firearms licence.
Days later on June 1, McRae was again charged with possession of ammunition after plain clothes police noticed him acting suspiciously in a Mudgee shop.
Suspecting that he was shoplifting, they searched him and the esky he was carrying which contained seven .22 rounds.
McRae was then charged with possession of house-breaking implements, a prohibited drug and a knife in a public place, at about 4.10am on Sunday, July 29.
Police were conducting an unrelated random breath test in Church Street at the time and McRae walked past them he put his hood over his head and sped up his pace.
When officers questioned him he seemed agitated and in a hurry to leave, claiming to be going to a friend’s house to go fishing.
They noticed he was wearing a head torch and had gloves protruding from his pockets. He was searched and also found to have; an axe; wire-cutters; pliers; syringes; medi-swabs; and 0.5g of methamphetamine.
On the most recent incident, Magistrate David Day commented facetiously that “keen fishermen” carry a stomach pump to see what fish have been eating, but “I haven’t heard of anyone using syringes for that”.
“It’s not a good look, it’s very unhealthy,” he said about the drug possession.
In relation to the bullets His Honour told the defendant, “you said you had the ammunition in your esky in town because you live on a rural property [at the time], but that doesn’t take away from the fact you don’t have a licence. I would’ve thought there are better things to put in an esky.”
