A young Ballarat man has avoided a prison sentence in adult custody for crimes including breaking into and ransacking an elderly women’s home before falling asleep in her bedroom.
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Police were forced to wake 19-year-old Jesse Loughnane from a tranquiliser induced slumber when he was found in the front bedroom of a 79-year-old woman’s ransacked home.
Loughnane faced the Ballarat Magistrates’ Court yesterday where he pleaded guilty to a number of charges relating to burglary, dealing proceeds of crime, as well as possessing and trafficking drugs.
His bizarre list of crimes began on May 17, 2017, when he arrived at the Ballarat Base Hospital’s emergency department in a semi-conscious state after being hit by a car.
When searched by nurses for identification, they located an ice pipe and a small bag with a white crystal substance in his pants pocket; later identified by police as methamphetamine.
Police were called to the hospital and Loughnane was taken to the Ballarat Police Station where he gave a no comment interview.
On September 5, police executed a search warrant at an Alfredton address where a search of Loughnane’s bedroom uncovered a safe in the wardrobe containing 17 bags of cannabis with 30 grams in each bag totaling 510 grams, $185 in cash, a homemade Taser, and two tablets of oxycodone.
The search also recovered a 20 centimeter double edged knife and two unused shotgun cartridges along with scales and aluminium foil believed to be used for packaging cannabis.
Loughnane was again interviewed by police and made no admissions to trafficking, claiming the cannabis was for personal use.
He was also implicated in the sale of a stolen KTM motorbike that was taken during an aggravated burglary in Ballarat East on October 16, 2017.
The court heard Loughnane and an accomplice took the stolen motorbike to a Mount Helen address where Loughnane facilitated the sale of the bike by writing out and signing a receipt of sale for the buyer.
The next day, after having an argument with his partner, the court heard Loughnane broke into an ransacked a house in Alfredton after taking an unknown amount of the sedative Xanax.
He was found in the house by the owner when she returned home at about 5pm to find Loughnane asleep and the back door of her house smashed in.
The victim immediately called triple zero in a distressed state and police arrived to wake the sleeping man.
Upon searching him, police found he was carrying two boxes of .22 caliber ammunition, a small pill bottle of Xanax and bag containing crashed tablets.
This time when interviewed by he made admissions to burglary and said he was unsure how much Xanax he had taken.
His defence lawyer said Loghnane had spent the last three months in custody and in that time had completed drug and alcohol counseling as well as a number of other courses to aid his rehabilitation.
“There would be little to gain keeping him in custody any longer,” his lawyer said.
“It is time lost he could be engaged in treatment and addressing his offending.”
Magistrate Gregory Robinson said the three months Loughnane had spent in pre-sentence detention was not a sufficient punishment for his crimes.
"In this town in particular, young people are going thorough the Children's Court system with an expectation we will treat them the same way in the adult stream,” he said.
“Young people need to know when we give warnings in the Children’s Court there will be a bite at the end, I need to know this message is getting through."
Loughnane was convicted and subject to a youth detention order for six months.
“I accept it was not sophisticated offending; it can be described as hopeless and consistent with your drug use,” Mr Robinson said.
“If you continue to use drugs when you are released, you can expect to go back that behavior and this is your last chance to have a sentence like this, you will definitely be going to adult prison."