CFA BAD BOY IN COURT
A DECORATED CFA firefighter has admitted stealing from the Lara brigade to feed his heroin habit.
Cameron Fox, 32, got a medal for fighting Victoria’s Black Saturday fires in 2009 and appeared in a TV advertisement for the CFA in 2014.
But yesterday he admitted to repeatedly breaking into the Lara station, pilfering cash from donation tins and also frequently stealing petrol from the CFA.
Geelong Magistrates’ Court heard Fox committed his crimes this year, aided by the trust he earned after 16 years in the brigade.
“He’s so ashamed. He knows he’s never welcome back (at Lara CFA) and he has lost all his friends,” Fox’s lawyer Ben von Einem said.
The CFA first became aware of Fox’s deceptions in February when operations staff noticed the BP fuel card for Lara’s diesel-powered forward control vehicle had been used to buy $2200 of unleaded petrol and lubricants since the prior November.
Petrol station security cameras showed Fox was the purchaser, and although he made no effort to repay the money, he tried to explain the incidents as accidental, saying he got the brigade’s petrol card confused with his own.
Fox was stood down because of the petrol allegations but did not return his uniform or key to the Lara station.
Police prosecutor Leading Senior Constable Geoff Lamb said the key was used to commit further thefts from the brigade, with the treasurer becoming suspicious in late April that donations were mysteriously disappearing.
About $80 was taken from a fire extinguisher collection tin left in the station about that time, and the brigade alleged sums of between $60 and $80 and four jerry cans went missing in following months.
However the brigade had no security footage to prove who the thief was.
In August, it installed new cameras, and caught Fox almost immediately. The court heard he took a portable radio and $10 three days after the camera was switched on, and raided donation tins twice more that week.
Fox pleaded guilty to a raft of burglary, theft and obtain property by deception charges yesterday.
Mr von Einem explained the man started using the d drug endone to treat a rare back injury in 2007, got addicted to it and “graduated” to heroin in November last year, but was now getting help for those issues.
Fox was ordered to pay restitution for the $2200 of petrol he stole, and to complete 80 hours of unpaid community work as part of a year-long corrections order.