Lyle Mark McFaul pleads guilty to stealing groceries from Coles, Woolies
A regional Queensland labourer turned methed-up crim has been jailed after pinching a huge number of groceries including $500 worth of meat which has “never been found”.
Police & Courts
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A 36-year-old labourer with a rapidly growing criminal record has been jailed after trying to swipe more than $1500 worth of groceries from Gympie’s supermarkets.
Gympie Magistrates Court heard Lyle Mark McFaul, from Chatsworth, committed his latest string of offences in the early months of 2023.
His most serious crimes were the attempts to steal groceries from two of Gympie’s largest supermarkets.
The court heard on May 30, 2023, McFaul entered the city’s Coles store at Goldfields Plaza about midday and walked around filling a shopping trolley with $1377.15 worth of groceries.
Police prosecutor Mel Campbell said he then “sprinted from the store with the trolley, narrowly missing colliding with senior citizens”.
Security chased him through the carpark and were able to recover the trolley.
The attempted theft came three months after he stole about $500 worth of meat from Woolworths at Gympie Central Shopping Centre.
Sgt Campbell said McFaul was again seen sprinting from the store through the entry gates.
The meat was never found.
On a third occasion he entered another person’s car, which was parked unlocked, and stole a wallet with $600 cash and an ANZ bank card.
The card was subsequently used by McFaul, who was captured on CCTV.
McFaul had also made a public nuisance of himself on two other occasions.
These included hassling an 87-year-old woman out on a walk to buy something for him, and asking passers-by for money,
McFaul’s lawyer Chris Anderson told the court his client, a labourer who had struggled with a methylamphetamine addiction, had also been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
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Mr Anderson said McFaul’s last job had been with a fencing contractor three years ago and he had “generally not been in work throughout his adult life”.
McFaul pleaded guilty to 15 charges including three counts of entering a premises to commit an indictable offence, two counts of stealing, four counts of breaching bail, two counts of public nuisance, and counts of trespass, wilful damage, fraud, and possessing drug utensils.
Magistrate Bevan Hughes told McFaul his jailing for these latest crimes was the result of his lengthening criminal history, already at 11 pages with multiple convictions since 2018, several for stealing and with sentences ranging from fines to jail terms.
“You continue to do this type of offending,” Mr Hughes said.
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It was self-defeating behaviour, too, with the losses incurred by his thefts simply being passed back on to himself and the wider community through price rises.
“There’s no win in this for yourself, or for anyone,” Mr Hughes said.
He sentenced McFaul to 18 months’ jail, noting 87 days had already been served in pre-sentence custody.
Mr Hughes gave McFaul a parole release date of October 3, 2023, with the remainder of the sentence to be suspended for a year.
McFaul was also ordered to pay $700 restitution to SPER for damage he did to a door frame while trying to break into a house on January 21, 2023.
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