Tommie Roy McCarthy: Man sentenced to jail after being busted with stolen vehicle, syringe

A former Warwick man and serial offender with a shocking criminal history has let fly an expletive-riddled outburst in court, after a stolen car and syringe landed him an even longer stint behind bars. FULL REPORT HERE:

A former Warwick man with almost 20 years of shocking criminal history has unleashed an explosive outburst in a Warwick courtroom after being sentenced to jail for his latest offending.

Police searched a home on Darling St, Allora on February 2, where they found Tommie Roy McCarthy with the keys to a stolen Jeep Cherokee parked on the property.

Warwick Magistrates Court heard the owner had parked the vehicle at Burleigh Heads and left the keys in a locked box attached to the car, but returned a short while later to find the Jeep and personal belongings inside it, including a mobile phone and wallet, had all been taken.

The car was tracked using the victim’s mobile phone location, showing it stopped at Carina before reaching its final destination in Allora.

The court was told McCarthy claimed the car was delivered to the Darling St home overnight by an associate from whom the 37-year-old planned to purchase the vehicle, but said he started to question the car’s origins due to it being in better condition than he usually expected from the seller.

Tommie Roy McCarthy

McCarthy was also busted with a syringe inside his bag and identification from the victim’s wallet in his own during the raid.

He appeared in the Warwick court via videolink from jail, where he had been since his arrest in February after being released on parole only a few months prior to the offending.

Defence lawyer Clare Hine said her client had an extremely promising career as a rodeo competitor when he was a younger man, but a serious car accident when he was 18 sent him spiralling into a pattern of criminality and hopelessness instead.

“He became addicted to prescription painkillers, particularly oxycodone, and he says that by the age of 20, he was addicted to opioids and then to ice,” she said.

Ms Hine told the court McCarthy was now battling a number of mental health issues and was expecting a liver cancer diagnosis in the near future, with this latest ordeal driving away both his partner and mother.

“His last offending occurred back in 2020, so he managed to change his lifestyle for almost a two-year period, which does give some hope for the possibility of rehabilitation in the future,” she said.

Magistrate Virginia Sturgess put little stock in McCarthy’s story about how the stolen car came into his possession, saying his criminal history with convictions for assault occasioning bodily harm, fraud, and other serious offences meant he would have known the vehicle had questionable origins.

“You were not even one year into the two-year sentence you were meant to be serving,” she said.

“It’s a bit over four months you’ve been back in prison, and your full-time discharge date is not until March 1, 2024.

“Your prospects of staying out of custody really aren’t good unless you address the underlying cause.”

Ms Sturgess sentenced McCarthy to an additional 12 months’ jail with parole eligibility on December 20, 2022, which sparked an outraged response from the former Warwick man.

McCarthy demanded to change his plea and then to appeal the sentence when his first request was denied, eventually letting fly a string of expletives.

“Getting f —ked in the a-se over f —king unlawful possession of a motor vehicle, that’s bulls —t,” he said.

McCarthy pleaded guilty to one count each of unlawful possession of a vehicle and failure to dispose of a syringe.

His new full-time release date was set at March 1, 2025.