‘I don’t want jail again’

A Gold Coast man who went on a drug-fuelled crime spree that included getting his girlfriend’s car stuck on tram tracks has been given a 17month prison sentence.

Blaine Phillip William Taylor, 27, pleaded guilty to eight charges in the Southport Magistrates Court yesterday.

Taylor drove a Toyota Corolla onto tram tracks at the overpass near Queen St station, Southport, where it was stuck for an hour from 3.40am on New Year’s Day.

It followed a series of breakins across the city, including standing over an Arundel woman as she woke up in the middle of the night and stealing an electric bicycle from a Labrador address.

Police caught up with Taylor at Oxenford where he was found with a glass pipe and mobile phone taken from a car in Labrador.

Shortly after police picked him up his girlfriend discovered it was Taylor who stole her car.

Yesterday, defence lawyer Campbell MacCallum, of Moloney MacCallum Lawyers, told the court that drug use had caused Taylor’s “strange behaviour”. “It’s obviously due to some drugs which have been consumed,” he said.

Mr MacCallum said his client “never wanted to see the inside of a cell again” and planned to take part in a rehabilitation program.

In sentencing, Magistrate Gary Finger gave Taylor a combined 17-month prison sentence with immediate parole.

“I can give you an iron clad guarantee that if you come back to this court, especially on an indictable offence, they will lock you up and throw away the key,” Mr Finger said.