By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A 48-year-old mum has been fined due to having only a minor part in shoplifting a trampoline from a Kmart store just before last Christmas.
She directed a triumphant ‘Ha!’ towards the Star News reporter as she left Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 22 October.
As had been previously reported, the accused was with her two primary-school aged sons and an unknown male when she paid for bedding and a shirt at the self-serve pay terminal at Kmart in Fountain Gate on 22 December.
At the same time, the trampoline in two boxes was loaded on a trolley and wheeled out of the store without payment by the unknown male, police told Dandenong Magistrates’ Court.
Defence lawyer Bernard Keating argued that the accused had assumed that the unknown male had paid for “his” trampoline.
The trampoline was later recovered in the shopping centre’s car park.
Police dropped charges that the woman had threatened to kill and attempted to strike an intervening customer who had followed them out of the store.
On 22 October, magistrate Pauline Spencer said another person was “predominantly involved” in the theft.
The woman was fined $500, plus $300 for a careless driving charge.
On 20 November, she will contest a charge of refusing a drug-driver test, which carried a mandatory four-year driving disqualification.
A preliminary test indicated drugs in her system, but she allegedly refused to submit to follow-up tests, the court heard.
