Young woman sentenced to imprisonment for being in stolen car

Casey Bower, 23, was found as a passenger in a stolen car in July last year, was arrested and bailed, but failed to appear on bail the next month.

The Ballarat Magistrates' Court heard on Wednesday Bower was found using a stolen car in Bendigo in March.

The car she was in was valued at $20,000 and had been stolen by offenders in an aggravated burglary.

She was arrested and has been remanded in custody since.

There was no evidence Bower was involved in the theft of the cars.

The court heard it was the third time she had breached a community corrections order and her fourth time in prison.

Magistrate Ron Saines said Bower had 'completely defied' the court's sentencing order by failing to comply with Corrections Victoria.

He said Bower had regularly offended since she was 19.

"Your childhood and adolescence has been unsettled and unstable," he said.

"Your regular offending could have been avoided had you grown up in a settled family with role models.

"Having said that as your offending and frequency increases, so does the court's need to send messages of denunciation and deterrence in sentencing."

Bower was sentenced to four months imprisonment time already served and a six-month community corrections order with a supervision requirement.

Mr Saines said he was giving Bower an opportunity to embark on her own self-directed rehabilitation journey, with the support of women's housing and prison release programs.

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