Off road for 14 years

A 20-YEAR-OLD man who went on a two-month ice-induced crime spree including using stolen cars to commit further offences has been jailed and disqualified from driving for 14 years.

Caleb Hayden Hearn was just 19 and out of jail a mere two months when his crime spree started on June 13 when he was caught driving while disqualified in Chinchilla, his 10th such offence.

A month later he was seen by police driving on Villiers St,

Chinchilla and directed to stop, but drove off, Toowoomba Magistrates Court heard.

A week after that offence, Hearn was driving a stolen car on the Warrego Highway, again while disqualified, and used the car in what was the first of 10 offences of stealing fuel from service stations by driving off without paying.

His offending escalated when he drove into Toowoomba where his next series of service station drive offs in stolen cars occurred.

Between July 26 and August 2, Hearn had used an axe to smash the front glass door of Metro Seafood in the Westridge Shopping Centre from which drinks and two donation tins of Lifeline and LifeFlight were stolen.

He had used an axe or car jack to smash doors when gaining access to Harristown News and Casket from which stock was stolen and the NightOwl from which $2000 in tobacco products was taken.

The court heard loss of stock and damage at the NightOwl amounted to more than $5200 while the cost to Harristown News and Casket was more than $3000.

Hearn also used a counterfeit $50 note to obtain liquor from the Newtown Hotel.

Hearn, who celebrated his 20th birthday on Thursday at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre, appeared by video link to plead guilty to 26 offences.

His solicitor Jag MacDonald said his client had grown up in foster care and lost his mother to drug overdose and father to murder in 2015.

Hearn started drugs at an early age and meth was behind all of his offending.

Due to Covid restrictions and overcrowding, his client had been subject to prison lockdowns and sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

However, once sentenced it was hoped he would be transferred to another prison, Mr MacDonald submitted.

Magistrate Kay Ryan sentenced Hearn to two years in jail, minus 67 days already served, and disqualified him from holding or obtaining a driver’s licence for a total 14 years on the six disqualified driving and two evading police offences. He will be released on parole on February 3, 2021.