Expensive Christmas break

COMING to Toowoomba to help his ex-partner with the children over the Christmas break had proved an expensive exercise for Charleville man Nathan James Ramsey who ended up spending a night in the watch house before being handed more than $2000 in fines.

Ramsey had been picked up by police while walking on Harth St, Rockville, about 12.50am on Monday, Toowoomba Magistrates Court heard.

A routine pat-down search by police found he had been carrying a 35cm black-handled knife which he told the officers he had taken from the kitchen for his own protection, police prosecutor Eddie Fraser told the court.

Checks found the 32-yearold had failed to appear in the same court on November 25, and so he was taken into custody for the night before appearing in court yesterday to plead guilty to the failing to appear in court charge and to possessing a knife in a public place.

Ramsey also pleaded guilty to driving on Drayton Rd with methamphetamine in his system when on a probation ary licence on October 26.

A subsequent pat-down search of him at that time found he had a small clip sealed bag with 0.8g of white crystalline substance which was later analysed as being methamphetamine, Mr Fraser said.

He had also been found with three syringes not properly stored when police spoke to him and two other people sitting in a car in a Bridge St car park about 12.05am on October 11, and he also admitted failing to attend Charleville Police Station in October to have his identifying particulars taken.

Duty solicitor Brad Skuse, of David Burns Lawyers, told the court his client normally lived in Charleville but had been in Toowoomba helping out with his children over the Christmas break.

His client intended heading back to Charleville where he had work, he said.

Despite his client’s seven pages of criminal history, Mr Skuse submitted he was still eligible for fines although in 2017 he had been given two years of parole which he had got through without breach.

Magistrate Graham Lee fined Ramsey $900 and disqualified him from holding or obtaining a driver’s licence for seven months on the drug driving offence, fined him $750 for the drugs matters and failing to have his identifying particulars taken, $300 for failing to appear in court in November and $400 for possessing the knife in a public place with the knife forfeited to the crown.