Nicholas Adam Healy rammed into Fitzroy Towing for Commodore

A father went on a shocking crime spree which included stealing heavy machinery to break into a towing yard to retrieve a $70K car he earlier looted. He then tried torching the evidence.

“Breathtakingly brazen”.

These were the words used to describe the actions of a drug addict after he stole a front end loader to ram open a towing yard’s gates and retrieve a $70,000 Holden Commodore.

A Commodore he had earlier stolen from a car dealership.

The details of 32-year-old Nicholas Adam Healy’s offending were heard before Rockhampton District Court on Monday.

Crown prosecutor Luke Smoothy said Healy had told police his addiciton to methamphetamines had “spiralled out of control” when he went on a crime spree last year.

On May 2, 2022, Healy got away with $1400 from Bundaberg’s Melbourne Hotel while armed and wearing a disguise.

Nicholas Adam Healy, 32.

Six days later, he gained access to Rockhampton Auto Group premises and took two sets of keys from a lockbox – for the 2017 Commodore as well as a $40,000 HiLux.

Healy drove the Commodore to a service station in Gracemere where he met an associate who he drove back for the HiLux.

A week later, Healy broke into a truck and stole $32,000 of tools.

Police managed to seize the Commodore when Healy was not using it, but the addict later found it parked inside Fitzroy Towing’s Parkhurst yard.

“In what I can only describe as breathtakingly brazenly, (he) stole a nearby frontend loader from a heavy equipment repair shop and drove the frontend loader into the car yard, smashing through the gate and pushing a tow truck out of the way which was blocking the Commodore,” Mr Smoothy told the court.

Healy then torched the loader to try to destroy his fingerprints, causing $150,000 of damage and destroying the cabin.

Healy was later found in possession of a shortened firearm which had been stolen in a burglary some years earlier, along with 11 rounds of .22 ammunition.

“His drug-fuelled desperation is clear,” Mr Smoothy said.

“He’s engaged in highly dangerous behaviours with no regard to his safety or others.”

Judge Jeff Clarke said Healy told police he needed money to pay someone he owed.

Defence barrister Sheridan Shaw said the father-of-four separated from his wife because of his drug use, and his family had gone with her to Bundaberg to help care for the children.

Ms Shaw said his drug use started as recreational, but turned into an addiction by 2017 after Healy struggled with a close friend’s suicide.

Healy pleaded guilty to arson, enter premises with intent, armed robbery, wilful damage, unlawful use of a motor vehicle used to commit an indictable offence, failing to appear in court, possessing explosives, receiving tainted property, possessing a weapon and possessing a knife in public.

He also pleaded guilty to three counts of enter a premise and committing an indictable offence and three unlawful use of a motor vehicle.

He received a five-year prison term head sentence with immediate parole eligibility, with 363 days of presentence custody declared as time already served.