Man lost partner, job and liberty

RELATIONSHIP breakdown had driven a 21-year-old man into a two-month crime spree, Toowoomba Magistrates Court has heard.

Tyson Cameron Plant had been in a relationship, had a good job and good life.

However, after the relationship broke down he had lost his partner and his job and ended up “couch surfing”, his solicitor Adelaide Davies told the court.

The 21-year-old appeared by video link from Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre to plead guilty to 19 offences committed between late September and late November last year.

Those offences included the unlawful use of a motor vehicle, burglary, stealing substantial amounts of tools from parked vehicles, shoplifting bottles of alcohol from Toowoomba bottle shops and breaching bail conditions.

Ms Davies said her client hadn’t offended since 2013 before these matters and he had been held in custody for 116 days since his arrest.

That time had been her client’s first time in custody and he had been left traumatised by what he had witnessed in the correctional facility, she said.

His grandfather had also died while he was in prison and he had not been able to say goodbye to him, Ms Davies submitted.

Her client was now medicated for depression and had been seeing a psychiatrist while in custody.

Magistrate Graham Lee told Plant the experience of being in custody should be a stark reminder to him not to re-offend.

He sentenced Plant to 12 months in jail but, declaring the 116 days as time served, ordered he be released on parole immediately.