Police allege a man stole four of the same type of car throughout January and used them to steal property from homes, a court has heard.
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Joel Baird applied for bail at the Ballarat Magistrates' Court on Tuesday and will learn his fate on Wednesday when a decision is handed down.
Police prosecutor Senior Constable Clint Prebble said the 27-year-old was an unacceptable risk of endangering the safety and welfare of the public and committing further offences on bail.
A police informant said Baird stole a Ford Courier ute from a Haddon property on January 2 and used it to drive to a Springbank home the next day where he broke into sheds and stole more than $5300 worth of tools.
The stolen car was found abandoned and doused in fuel in a rural area in Haddon hidden behind trees on January 5.
Police allege Baird stole another Ford Courier ute on January 8 from an Alfredton property and used it to attend a Ballarat North home.
He is accused of accessing the canopy of a ute and stealing power tools, a fridge and a toolbox, before travelling to another home about 1.4km away where he stole specialist plumbing tools from a ute.
The informant said the stolen items were later found smouldering in a suspicious fire.
The court heard Baird is accused of stealing tools from a Winter Valley garage and he was captured on CCTV.
The same day he allegedly loaded tools, batteries and other items from an open Miners Rest garage into the back of the stolen ute.
Police found the stolen ute destroyed by fire in a pine plantation in Sulky on January 12.
Baird is accused of stealing another Ford Courier ute from Miners Rest on January 12, captured on CCTV footage.
He allegedly stole another car of the same type from Ballarat East on January 20.
He is accused of using it to drive to a Wendouree property and steal more than $20,000 worth of items from a shed.
The police informant said on January 23 a Springmount resident heard a knock at the door and Baird asked to use a phone as he was having car trouble.
A witness driving past allegedly saw the outstanding stolen ute on fire and Baird rolling around on the ground.
The informant said Baird went back to his brother's house in Wendouree and went to hospital in an ambulance for his burns.
The court heard an anonymous person recognised him in the emergency department and called police.
Baird had burns to the lower portions of both legs and remained in hospital under police guard for more than a week.
The informant said he was concerned Baird was a potential flight risk if he was released on bail as he had lived in Queensland for the past four years.
"I suspect this offending was to fund a drug habit with the amount of property that was being stolen," he said.
"We were unable to recover the stolen property."
The informant said CCTV footage was largely relied on as evidence in this case.
Baird's grandmother told the court he could live with her if granted bail.
She said he had a 'fairly extensive' problem with drugs for about eight years.
Defence lawyer Manny Brennan said the weakness of the prosecution case was important in his client's application for bail.
"There is a real difficulty with identification in relation to almost all of the charges," he said.
Mr Brennan said his client met the compelling reasons threshold for bail because he had the support of his grandmother and the availability of the Court Integrated Services Program.
"There is a risk the time he spends on remand would exceed any sentence," he said.
Magistrate Ron Saines will hand down his decision on bail on Wednesday.
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