Car thieves jailed

By Dion Teasdale
EIGHT Yarra Valley youths have been convicted over the theft and criminal damage of more than 20 cars.
The group faced 130 charges relating to a seven-month crime spree, during which the cars were stolen, burnt out and dumped.
The eight appeared at both Ringwood Magistrates’ Court and Ringwood Children’s Court between 25 May and 3 November.
The three main offenders were handed prison sentences and were disqualified from driving.
The remaining five offenders were sentenced to perform unpaid community work or ordered to participate in a diversion program.
The people, aged between 15 and 23, have lived in the Healesville and Lilydale areas over the past two years.
The cars, which were mostly older model Toyotas and Fords, were stolen from the Healesville, Lilydale and Mooroolbark areas between May and December last year.
Most of the cars were dumped along Monda Track at Donnelly’s Weir, Badger Creek and at Mt St Leonard where they were vandalised and set alight.
A 22-year-old man was convicted and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment with a minimum of three months to be served, and a 23-year-old man was convicted and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.
Another 23-year-old man was convicted and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 24 months, and has been ordered to perform 250 hours of unpaid community work.
A 19-year-old woman, an 18-year-old man, a 17-year-old boy, and a 15-year-old boy were ordered to perform unpaid community work.
Senior Constable Colin Clausen from the Croydon Regional Response Unit said the convictions were a pleasing result after lengthy investigations.
“This is a very good result for police and the courts have demonstrated that they are not going to tolerate this sort of behaviour,” he said.
“It is one thing to steal cars, but to go and destroy them is even more senseless, and this result sends a clear message to the community that it is not acceptable.”
Sen Constable Clausen said some of the offenders had admitted to stealing the cars for fun and confessed to burning the stolen cars as a means of destroying evidence.
“A number of the offenders told us they took the cars up into the bush so they could use them for rally driving around the logging tracks,” he said.
“They would intentionally crash into trees and other car wrecks to add a bit of excitement to their joy riding and then set fire to the cars to destroy any evidence.
“These crimes have affected people who can least afford to lose their vehicles, and a lot of people in Healesville and surrounding areas have been very angry about these crimes.”
Sen Constable Clausen said the result could not have been reached without the support of the Healesville SES.
“We are very grateful to Healesville SES for assisting us with identifying many of the dumped vehicles,” he said.
“Because the cars had been burnt out they had to be cut open to be identified and the SES volunteered a lot of their time in helping us.”