By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A man who has partially denied being part of a spate of thefts and dishonesty across Melbourne’s South-East has been granted bail to resume living among co-offenders in a Endeavour Hills boarding house.
Joshua Ring, 29, and two co-residents at the boarding house allegedly stole a Nissan Tiida from a Doveton resident’s driveway on 21 March, a court heard.
Police informant Senior Constable Heath Cay told Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 22 May that the stolen vehicle was subsequently fitted with two sets of stolen number plates.
It was allegedly involved in petrol drive-offs and ‘pay-wave’ purchases with stolen credit-cards at servos, supermarkets and McDonald’s outlets in March and April.
Ring and co-offenders had been identified on CCTV footage at the stores; Ring’s fingerprints were dusted on the crashed Tiida’s passenger doorframe after it was abandoned near his home on 13 April, Sen Const Cay said.
Ring had also made partial admissions to being in the car and using some of the credit cards, the informant told the court.
The alleged offending continued in a Suzuki Swift with one stolen number-plate on 20 and 24 April. Again, illegal pay-wave purchases were made from credit-cards stolen from cars at homes in Doncaster East and Beaconsfield.
A short time after the latter burglary, the cards were used in a $1000-plus “spending spree” of 15 illegal transactions at various stores.
At the time of all of the offending, Ring was on bail for evading police while driving unlicensed in Bendigo and breaching an intervention order in Geelong.
Sen Const Cay said Ring – who had also told police he couldn’t drive – had attributed his offending to his ‘ice’ habit.
Police had opposed Ring’s bail due to an “unacceptable risk of re-offending”, partly fuelled by his boarding-house co-offenders.
However a Corrections Victoria report recommended Ring’s release to the same boarding house on the CISP ‘credit bail’ program.
Ring would resume contact with drug treatment, outreach, mental health and other services under the program, his lawyer told the court.
The accused, who had spent 12 days in remand, was still recovering from the trauma of being seriously assaulted in custody in 2014, the lawyer said.
Magistrate Jack Vandersteen said he was concerned about Ring spending further time in remand given that trauma, Ring’s Aboriginality, his one prior conviction and the unlikelihood of serving a jail term.
“But the question is his accommodation situation.
“It doesn’t seem to be working well for him,” Mr Vandersteen said.
He noted the offending co-incided with Ring moving to the boarding house two months ago, which was “around the corner” from another notorious address.
“He gets put in the boarding house with all the same problems and what do you think is going to happen then?”
The likely alternative was Ring being put up at a pub – which was “not ideal either”, Mr Vandersteen said.
Mr Vandersteen said it was not a weak prosecution case. “You follow the cards, you follow (Ring),” he said.
But he noted it was important for Ring to “face the elders” at a Koori court appearance in Bendigo seven days later, with the hope of finalising the matter with a corrections order.
Ring was bailed on strict conditions to appear at Bendigo including a night curfew, daily reporting to Endeavour Hills police station and a ban on associating with the co-accused outside the boarding house.
“You have a lock on the door,” Mr Vandersteen said.
“If you don’t like the people around there, you can lock yourself away.”
Ring is listed to appear at a mention hearing at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 29 June.
