Mum admits to offences spree

Quest to see her children leads to court

A QUEST to see her children had led to a series of events that culminated in a Toowoomba woman facing multiple charges before the city’s Magistrates Court.

Solicitor Chris Lumme told the court his client, Breaze Amba Hutchinson, had two young children from what had been a “very volatile” relationship with the children’s father.

After her estranged partner had left for the Bundaberg area with the children, his client had struggled to see them.

The court heard that had led to the 27-year-old taking the Volkswagon Golf sedan of a friend without permission and driving to Bundaberg in an attempt to see her children despite her driver’s licence having been disqualified by the court for two years in February last year.

Police prosecutor Julia Wheaton told the court, after driving from

❝I accept you’ve been in a difficult position but your traffic history is not good.

— Magistrate Damian Carroll to the defendant

Goombungee in the sedan, Hutchinson had attached two number plates from another vehicle in Gatton to the one she was driving and then had done two “drive-offs” from service stations in Withcott and Avoka near Bundaberg, both times leaving behind an unpaid fuel bill of $60.

When eventually located by police she had been found with a throwing knife in her handbag as well as small amounts of marijuana and amphetamine and a glass pipe for smoking drugs, she said.

Hutchinson pleaded guilty to all 13 offences.

Mr Lumme said his client had since taken positive steps to rehabilitate herself and had engaged with the Alcohol and Other Drugs Service and had been seeing a psychologist.

Magistrate Damian Carroll said the most serious of the offending were the two disqualified driving charges which would be her second and third convictions for that offence.

“I accept you’ve been in a difficult position but your traffic history is not good,” he said.

Mr Carroll sentenced Hutchinson to three months in jail, the term wholly suspended for 18 months, on the two disqualified driving charges and placed her on 18 months probation to include random testing for drugs for all other offences. She was also fined $250 and ordered to pay $120 restitution.