Pokie-addicted painter jailed after 13 years of rip offs

They say the law has a long arm. In the case of a dodgy house painter, it goes back to a shocking history of ripoffs and thefts he first committed 13 years ago.

A Cleveland magistrate has ripped into a painter and decorator who stole from employers and ripped off customers for 13 years. File photo: iStock

A Redcliffe painter and decorator who stole $23,000 in tools after his employer went bust and ripped off multiple customers to feed a pokies habit has been jailed for two months.

The law finally caught up with Darren Robert Pedersen, 42, after police arrested him up for failing to appear in Southport Magistrates Court late last month, where he was due to have faced charges of driving off from a service station without paying for fuel and for dishonestly taking $450.

But Cleveland Magistrates Court was told yesterday that was the tip of the iceberg of a string of offences going back to 2006 and spanning NSW and Queensland.

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“I think you are a longtime fraudster. You have left a lot of disappointed people in your wake,’’ Magistrate Deborah Vasta told him via telephone hook-up.

“Despite having a warrant out against you, you had the audacity to put up an advertisement (for house painting).

“You took $470 off (the victim) and said you couldn’t do the work because of rain, but I don’t think you ever planned to do the work.’’

“In 2017, some poor person (paid for) your services on Airtasker (a mobile phone app where people offer, or ask for, jobs to be done) and transferred $2000 to your account.

“You never did the work and just took the money and ran.’’

The court also heard Pedersen rented a unit in 2006 but then stole all the contents and pawned them.

Three years later, he stole tools from a company which had employed him for more than four years, after it went bust, pawning them at Redcliffe and Aspley for a total of $23,000.

Two years ago, Pedersen also stole trestles and metal planks from Kennards Hire, the court was told.

His lawyer, Ms Pascoe, said her client had had a gambling addiction since he was 18 and in 2011 attended a rehabilitation centre.

“After that he did not reoffend for (five) years,’’ Ms Pascoe said.

She said her client co-operated every time he was “intercepted’’ by police but was on Centrelink benefits and could not afford to pay restitution.

However, police prosector Sgt Tetley said other offenders on low incomes had been put on payment plans for similarly large fines.

Ms Vasta said an actual period of imprisonment was required and sentenced Pedersen, who pleaded guilty to 11 counts of stealing, fraud, and failing to appear, to a seven-month head sentence.

She ordered he be released from jail after serving two months, with the remainder of the sentence suspended for two years.

Ms Vasta also ordered Pedersen pay restitution of $2000 to the woman who responded to his Airtasker ad, and $470 to the person he had promised painting work.