Amy Warren, 18, pleaded guilty at the Ballarat magistrates’ court to seven charges, including stealing cars, resisting police and drug possession. 

The court heard Warren, her boyfriend James Nunn, who is also in custody, and a third offender were involved in a slew of crimes between September 24 and October 10 this year. 

Police claim Warren and an accomplice broke into the garage of a Ballarat house on September 24 while the occupants were home and stole a Mercedes worth $50,000. 

The thieves were caught on CCTV and spotted by an off-duty police officer at the Shell service station in Creswick with the car about half an hour later. 

A few days later, Warren was spotted in Delacombe getting into a stolen Mazda sedan driven by Nunn who sped away, evading police. 

Two days later, police sighted Warren in the driveway of a house in Redan before getting into a stolen Volkswagen, also being driven by Nunn, who sped away a second time.

The car was later found dumped in the Mount Helen are after the police air-wing was called to the area.

Police executed a search warrant at the garage of a Winter Valley address where Warren initially resisted police on Tuesday, October 10.

A search revealed drugs along with keys to a Mazda BT-50, believed to have been stolen from an address in Navigators two weeks earlier, in Warren’s handbag. 

Magistrate Gregory Robinson said Warren had already had “significant interactions with youth justice but it hasn’t worked.”

“There is an opportunity here to send her to a place as a real deterrent to others who commit this serious type of offending,” he said.

Police prosecution agreed but said she would be best suited to some incarceration followed by a community corrections order. 

The case was adjourned to November 2 pending assessment for youth detention and a CCO.