Snakes alive! That’s rich

A MAN found with a snake during a police search of his then Helidon Spa home hadn’t realised the high penalties for such offending.

Eric Kenneth McAlister told police he had found the snake in a Toowoomba park and had taken it home where police found the coastal carpet snake inside a zip-up plastic quilt case on January 18, Toowoomba Magistrates Court heard.

Magistrate Graham Lee told the 35-year-old the penalty for keeping a protected snake was 100 penalty units ($12,600).

McAlister pleaded guilty to those charges as well as to another 16 mainly drug-related offences including driving with amphetamine and marijuana in his system when pulled over by police on O’Brien St, Toowoomba, about 8.30pm July 1.

He told police he was driving a mate home from because his mate was too drunk to drive his own car, police prosecutor Sergeant Natalie Bugden said.

Checks found McAlister was actually disqualified from driving at the time.

Some of those offences breached a 14-month probation order the father of two was subject to at the time for previous offences including assault occasioning bodily harm and other drug matters.

His solicitor Claire Graham said her client had fallen back into drug use as a result of stress arising from difficulties with his wife who suffered a range of mental health issues and he had found it hard to cope.

The couple was now separated but her client had the care of their two young children, she said.

Magistrate Graham Lee fined McAlister $2000 on the snake charge and sentenced him to eight-and-a-half months in jail on the other offences but ordered he be released on parole forthwith and disqualified him from driving for three years.