Armed ice duo get jail over car chase
AN ICE addict who posted pictures of himself on social media with weapons and cash asked his friends if they had “wheels” seven weeks before a cross-border chase where shots were fired at motorists and police.
Armed fugitives John Tough, 34, and Calin McCabe, 22, both from Brisbane, were sentenced in the NSW District Court yesterday after being convicted of offences relating to a fourhour, high-speed police chase from Caboolture to northern NSW on February 5, 2015.
Tough, the main offender, will spend the next decade behind bars after being sentenced to 14 years in jail, with a 10-year non-parole period.
He was convicted of three counts of firing a gun in an attempt to evade arrest and four counts of aggravated assault with intent to take a motor vehicle.
The court heard the pair were caught travelling at up to 190km/h in a stolen blue Mitsubishi Lancer on the M1 heading toward Tweed Heads.
They were pursued by Queensland and NSW police from Caboolture, carjacking several vehicles before the tyres of one were blown out by road spikes at Tugun.
Tough then jumped out of the Lancer and shot at police officers and members of the public about six times, the court heard.
Gold Coast Road Policing Unit boss Senior Sergeant Bradyn Murphy, who arrested Tough after he was hit by another car on the motorway, told the Gold Coast Bulletin: “It was high pressure. I pursued him from Robina. (At Tugun) Tough got out and started shooting and we couldn’t return fire because there were so many motorists, so we just had to dodge his shots.
“Had he shot a straight bullet that day, anybody could have been killed.”
Former highway patrol Senior Constable Troy Cutler said outside court yesterday he was close to shooting at Tough that day and was “99 per cent sure” he would have killed him.
“I’ve been a policeman for 16 years and at that particular moment I was 10.8m away, and I was on my second squeeze of the trigger.”
Tough and McCabe were heavy ice users at the time of their arrest and several months before the pursuit McCabe posted on Facebook he was “not a pushover kid that anyone can use”.
Two days later he posted a picture of himself with a large hunting knife and a stack of $50 notes with the tag: “(Expletive) oath we all have our angry days”. The next day he asked: “Anyone got wheels??”
McCabe, who the court heard “played very much the secondary role” in the offending, was sentenced to six years in jail with a non-parole period of three years.
In sentencing, Judge Deborah Sweeney said the crimes were “spontaneous and chaotic” and unfolded “without regard for public safety”.
WE COULDN’T RETURN FIRE BECAUSE THERE WERE SO MANY MOTORISTS, SO WE JUST HAD TO DODGE HIS SHOTS