Casey Desmond George Lander faces Toowoomba Magistrates Court for trying to remove GPS ankle tracker

The 35-year-old recidivist offender was serving a nine-year jail term when he was released on parole, but his liberty didn’t last long. See what happened here.

A 35-year-old recidivist offender serving a nine-year jail term was released on parole just two months before he tried to cut off his GPS ankle tracking device.

Casey Desmond George Lander was released from prison on parole on May 24, with a condition that he wear a GPS tracker when, due to his noncompliance with the order, had his parole suspended and a return to prison warrant issued on July 25.

Toowoomba Magistrates Court was told police eventually tracked him to a house in Toowoomba two days later where he was found to have sticky taped the band of his ankle tracker, which had been cut halfway through.

Casey Desmond George Lander appeared in Toowoomba Magistrates Court on August 24, 2023.

Lander initially told police he didn’t know how the tracker had been damaged but later said he cut the band while jumping over a fence, police prosecutor Rowan Brewster-Webb said.

When a patdown search of his clothing found a mobile phone and a clip seal bag with less than 1g of substance suspected to be meth, Lander said the clothes weren’t his and that though the phone was his he knew nothing about the clip seal bag, he said.

Lander later told police he had been given the bag containing meth but he had thought it was Epsom salts, Mr Brewster-Webb said.

Lander appeared via video link from the jail to plead guilty to possessing dangerous drugs and wilful damage.

The court heard Lander had been sentenced to seven years’ jail in 2017 for an ice-fuelled attack on two women, one of whom he stabbed and the other he kicked in the head, and to another two years’ jail, to be served cumulatively, for a conviction of grievous bodily harm in a separate incident.

His full time release date on those sentences was September 2025, the court was told.

Lander’s solicitor Claire Graham, of Skuse Graham Lawyers, told the court her client had some mental health issues and was on the subutex program.

Lander’s last drug offence was dealt with by the court in August 2015, she said.

Magistrate Louise Shephard declared 28 days of pre-sentence custody as time served under the sentence and sentenced Lander to six months in jail but ordered he be eligible to apply for parole on that sentence immediately.

Originally published as Casey Desmond George Lander faces Toowoomba Magistrates Court for trying to remove GPS ankle tracker