‘Behave like adults’: Grandparents among Geelong’s older criminals
Grandparents are among the rising number of older people committing criminal offences. LIST OF OFFENDERS
Geelong
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GRANDPARENTS are among the rising number of older people committing criminal offences, with new data revealing 681 offenders aged 75 and above were sentenced in Victorian courts across 12 months.
New Crime Statistics Agency data shows 1256 people aged 45 and above were sentenced in Greater Geelong courts in the 12 months to September.
The trend is concerning leaders, with Magistrate Franz Holzer telling a 51-year-old offender at the Geelong Magistrates Court: “You’re not a child, you’re not a young man. You’re an adult and I expect people to behave like adults.”
Across the state, 9774 offenders aged 55 and above were sentenced in the same 12-month period.
The principal offence committed by people in this age group was crimes against another person – which includes serious offences like assault.
People aged 65 and above were even more likely to commit this offence than those aged 60-64.
The next highest offence for all age groups above 55 was justice procedure offences, which can range from escaping custody to perverting the course of justice, prison regulation offences and contravening court orders.
A Sentencing Advisory Council report, released in 2021, found offenders aged 60 and above accounted for 4 per cent of all cases in the state’s Magistrates Courts and 6 per cent of all cases in the higher courts between 2010 to 2019.
The report found the increase in older offenders in the higher courts was mainly due to an increasing number of historical sex offence cases being heard.
It found 67 per cent of older offenders sentenced for sex offences in the higher courts were sentenced 10 years or more after the offending occurred, with almost one in five (18 per cent) sentenced 40 years or more after the offending.
The report noted the increase in older offenders sentenced in the Magistrates Court each year was mainly caused by an almost doubling of cases of traffic and vehicle offences involving older offenders.
The number of older offenders sentenced for assaults and justice offences also more than doubled.
Following the report’s release, council chair, Professor Arie Freiberg, said the findings raised questions about why so many older people challenged traffic infringements in court.
“Is it because they can’t pay but are unaware of other avenues for review? For someone on a pension, an infringement penalty can represent a substantial amount of money,” he said.
“That is part of why we previously recommended reduced infringement penalties for people experiencing financial hardship.”
OLDER OFFENDERS NAMED
Vebi Nuredini, 63
The 63-year-old recently appeared at Geelong Magistrates Court and pleaded guilty to trafficking a drug of dependence.
In March last year, police showed up to Nuredini’s rural Lara property and found a series of sheds that had been padlocked.
Officers forced entry into one of the sheds and found 11 cannabis plants in individual pots standing 1.2m tall.
Melanie Gates, 57
Gates punched a stranger on the street and told officers she felt like “punching her to the head”, a court heard.
The 57-year-old recently appeared at the Geelong Magistrates Court and pleaded guilty to a string of assault and theft charges.
Earlier this year, a woman said she was followed, verbally abused and hit in the arm by Gates while walking on a footpath.
Ian Gunnell, 55
Gunnell, the husband of a former East Geelong Catholic school principal, avoided jail time for cultivating and trafficking 110kg of cannabis, more than four times the commercial quantity limit.
Gunnell was caught growing 37 intact cannabis plants on his rural property in March this year and admitted to police he had been trafficking the drug of dependence for months.
Fillipo Stefano, 57
Stefano stashed three guns and ammunition at his Moolap-based caravan business.
Police attended the Bellarine Bargains Caravan Sales and Storage along the Bellarine Highway in April this year and were met by a co-operative Stefano, who showed officers where he was keeping the firearms.
Stefano pleaded guilty in the Geelong Magistrates Court to possessing the firearms without a license.
Murray Lovell, 55
Lovell, 55, faced the Geelong Magistrates Court in August and pleaded guilty to possession of a drug of dependence, being cannabis, and possession of four firearms.
At the front of his home, police found a pot plant by his garage that contained a small cannabis plant.
Lovell, who has managed the Pirtek in North Geelong for over two decades, said he grew the cannabis plant from a seedling after getting it four months earlier and had it for personal use only.
Brian Bell, 77
The elderly Portarlington burglar, who tackled by his victim as he attempted to escape a suburban home, was issued a stern warning by a magistrate.
Bell, 77, was busted trying to steal from a Bell Post Hill home earlier this year, taking two gold bracelets, earrings and more than $300 in cash.
The court heard Bell had struggled with health issues for some time.
Originally published as ‘Behave like adults’: Grandparents among Geelong’s older criminals
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