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A 28-year-old man's actions were to feed his ongoing drug habit, Mudgee Local Court heard last Wednesday when the defendant was sentenced for multiple possession and theft offences.
Rohan Kirk of Hideaway Lane, Gulgong, was sentenced to an 18-month Community Corrections Order with 50 hours community service and a condition that he complete rehabilitation.
He was charged with larceny (value over $2,000) and possession of a prohibited drug, following an incident on Monday, March 4, 2019.
At about 2.50pm Kirk was part of a group that entered Harvey Norman's electronics department, before leaving the store without paying for anything. Ten minutes later a staff member noticed stock missing and reviewed the store's CCTV footage, then called the police who began looking into the incident.
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The next day the group returned the store and the police were called again. They recognised Kirk from the footage and arrested him, he was also searched and was found to be in possession of 0.5g of methamphetamine.
He admitted to stealing a number of items from the store across three visits during the previous day; two tablet computers; two remote control drones; a bluetooth speaker; breathalyser; phone cover; charger; and an SD card. The total value was over $3,000.
Just over a week later he was charged with larceny (value under $2,000) and four counts of possession of prohibited drugs.
At about 12.45pm on Thursday, March 14, police observed a vehicle - suspected of being used in drug activity - exit the Big W carpark. They followed it to Lawson Park, an area known for such activity. All occupants were of interest to police.
Kirk was sitting in the front passenger seat and in the footwell was a bag from Big W. A receipt showed that several items had been paid for, but didn't account for $148 worth of stock taken from that store and EB Games.
During questioning officers noticed that Kirk was fidgeting, a search found that he was concealing a large resealable bag within his clothes. It contained; 3.3g of cannabis; 2.7g of methamphetamine; 0.6g of hash; and 0.1g of the opioid treatment buprenorphine.
His legal-aid solicitor, Steven Wright, told the court that the offences "lacked any form of sophistication or planning" and were perpetrated to feed his drug addiction. Magistrate David Day observed as much, commenting "one is a handful of junk, although the stuff from Harvey Norman is bit more upmarket".