Troubled man caught in woman’s bedroom
A YOUNG Geelong man with a troubled history has narrowly avoided jail after he was found hiding in a woman’s bedroom.
Fresh out of prison, Geelong man Kane Laurie, 23, fled from the home after the woman found him in the master bedroom with a backpack she said she recognised as her husband’s.
The woman said when she walked into the house, she noticed a cupboard had been opened and there was alcohol on the floor.
Laurie, who pleaded guilty at Geelong Magistrates Court to wilful trespass and theft, was seen running from the Newtown home by a witness who followed him and was briefly able to stop him.
A second witness also pursued Laurie in his car and managed to take photographs of him before he fled.
Laurie later told police he had been walking the streets with a co-accused man who had claimed his aunt lived close by and he wanted to visit the house to pick up some of his belongings.
He said he waited outside for about 15 minutes before approaching the door and being let inside by the co-accused man.
Laurie said he noticed the bags the man had stolen, but had “honestly thought it was his stuff”.
His lawyer told the court the co-accused man and Laurie had met in a hotel they were both placed in after prison terms.
She said Laurie was willing to plead guilty because his criminal history made it “less believable” that he did not know it was a theft.
Laurie was also accused of breaking the boom gate at the Market Square Shopping Centre to allow another man to drive through.
His lawyer said this “can only be described as quite silly”.
Magistrate Simon Guthrie heard Laurie had been completing private counselling sessions since the offending and told him this was “the only thing that saves you from going back (to prison)”.
“You can imagine how horrified she would have been to see someone of your size (in her home),” Mr Guthrie said.
“Absolutely horrified, I would suspect.”
Mr Guthrie also said Laurie had not used drugs in the past year and had gained employment.
He fined Laurie and told him if he had not pleaded guilty, he would have likely been handed another jail sentence.