Accused burglar Henri Melino sentenced for escaping custody by strolling out of police station

An accused burglar has agreed with a judge’s frank assessment of his behaviour after he walked out of a police station mid-arrest, telling him he thought it was a “fair call”.

A drug-addicted man charged with trespass offences and sacrilege strolled out the back door of a country police station while his arresting officer was in another room, a court has heard.

Henri Joseph Melino, 26, has yet to enter pleas to 21 charges including serious criminal trespass and sacrilege, which means breaking into places of worship.

But he was last week sentenced in the District Court sitting in Mount Gambier for escaping custody.

Judge Stephen McEwen described Melino’s actions as those of a “juvenile idiot”, to which Melino replied “yeah, that’s a fair call”.

On January 3, Melino was arrested and charged over a series of break-ins in Bordertown. He was charged with four counts of sacrilege, 11 counts of dishonestly taking property, five counts of serious criminal trespass and one count of aggravated theft, relating to break-ins across the country town in November and December 2019.

He was standing in the charging area of the Bordertown police station and was being processed by a police officer when he saw his opportunity.

His handcuffs had been taken off as he was being booked.

While the officer was out of the room Melino, who was heavily under the influence of methamphetamine, spotted that the back door of the station was ajar and walked out.

During sentencing submissions the court heard Melino came to his senses two days later and was walking back to the station to hand himself in.

A short distance from the station he spotted a police car, approached and was arrested.

The offending also breached a good behaviour bond for a charge of driving dangerously to escape police pursuit.

In November 2017, Melino had been driving at about 90km/h on Deviation Road in Naracoorte, a 60km/h limit road, when police tried to pull him over.

He sped up to around 130km/h and veered into an intersection. Police terminated the pursuit after about 30 seconds because of Melino’s erratic driving.

Melino remained in custody since his arrest in January, using the time in custody to get his methamphetamine addiction under control.

Judge McEwen sentenced Melino to seven months and 26 days for both escaping custody and breaching the good behaviour bond.

He backdated the penalty so Melino was eligible for release pending bail on his other charges.

The judge also gave Melino a few words of advice.

“I used to be a Children’s Court judge and frankly, your rap sheet reads like someone I used to deal with as a juvenile offender,” he said.

“Grow up, stop committing pathetic driving offences and just do some better decision making.

“Unless you are going to go to another regional area or some big city somewhere, you are going to live with your reputation.”