Woodville man Mitchell Harris bailed on fresh drug charges

Allegedly found with the makings of a drug lab in his house months after avoiding a jail term, a tradie has been granted bail back to the same house.

A self-employed carpenter was dealt with “particularly mercifully” just four months before he allegedly collected instruments to start a clandestine drug lab in his Woodville North garage, a court has heard.

Mitchell Charles Harris, 29, appeared by video link from prison before the state’s Supreme Court appealing a Magistrate’s decision to keep him behind bars on remand on the resulting charge.

The court heard Harris was pulled over by police for a traffic stop in September before his house was searched and equipment and chemicals used to make GHB was found in his garage and there was a vat of hydrochloric acid in his shared driveway.

But Andrew Culshaw, for Harris, told the court the resulting charge – manufacturing a controlled drug – was “at the low end” of offences of the same type, the prosecution’s case had “frailties” and fired a veiled shot at the police’s choice to charge him before collecting more evidence.

Mitchell Charles Harris leaves the District court after an earlier appearance. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

“The prosecution case is not overwhelming and there are frailties in it as it stands at the moment,” Mr Culshaw said.

“Although it is absolutely a matter for police whether and when to charge … given the type of allegation in question, it is regrettable that a charge was made immediately such that we’re now waiting for six months to really figure out if we have a case at all.

“My respectful submission is my client will not sit in jail while we wait for an investigation to be done to figure out if there is a case against him.”

Then, in a last-ditch addition to the plea for bail, Mr Culshaw told Justice Sandi McDonald a suspended sentence hanging over him from just months prior would, in fact, offer an “additional measure of confidence” Harris would not reoffend.

Harris was handed a suspended sentence in May on drug and gun charges after he was found in July, 2020, with 7.97g of meth, a BB gun, $4300 cash hidden behind the glove box, four mobile phones and prescription drugs.

Mitchell Charles Harris walks free from the District Court in May after being caught with a BB gun and meth during an arrest. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

He was in the grips of an out of control meth addiction, which Mr Culshaw said he had since abstained from, and was using an 8-ball of the drug each day for two months prior.

Mr Culshaw told the court Harris was in May offered “particularly merciful” leniency by Judge Michael Durrant because of his prospects of rehabilitation, and given a chance to “put his old life behind him”.

Prosecutor Brigid Symes opposed the application for bail, telling the court Harris posed an “unacceptable risk of reoffending”.

She said any assertion the chemical found in his garage – which can also be used as a gym supplement – might have been used for innocent use was unlikely given they were stored in a garden bag.

Justice McDonald granted Harris bail, but said she “came very close” to refusing it.

She pointed to his mother, who was in tears in the body of the court, when she said if he re-offended he would be letting her down.

“This really is your final chance,” she said.