Patrick McCurley faces long stint behind bars after torching $150k Jaguar during crime spree
Former prison escapee Patrick McCurley has pleaded guilty to setting fire to a $150,000 Jaguar during a crime spree in March.
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Former fugitive Patrick McCurley torched two cars — including a Jaguar sports car with a price tag of as much as $150,000 — during a brazen crime spree in Canberra in March.
McCurley, 30, pleaded guilty in the ACT Supreme Court on Monday to a string of 13 unlawful entry, unlawful use, stealing and arson charges.
The court heard McCurley torched a stolen Volkswagen Polo and a Jaguar F-type during his crime spree on March 23 and 24.
He also unlawfully entered a string of businesses including Cafe Charisma, the Lyneham Post Office, the Lyneham newsagency and Floorworld at Mitchell.
McCurley, a former meth user, has gained a large amount of weight since his last court date and appeared in the dock in prison-issued tracksuit pants with fresh tattoos, including one on his face.
He will be sentenced in February.
Crown Prosecutor Rebecca Christensen said the precise facts of McCurley’s offending were yet to be formalised.
McCurley last made headlines when he and fellow inmate scaled the fence of Canberra’s trouble-plagued prison, the Alexander Maconochie Centre, in September 2016, while on remand for a string of traffic offences.
He and his fellow escapee, Jacob Macdonald, then 21, scaled three fences with an improvised ladder. The escape prompted a two-day manhunt across Canberra and into NSW, culminating in McCurley’s arrest after he crashed a stolen car into a storm drain.
In 2017, Supreme Court Justice David Mossop slashed McCurley’s “crushing” 16-and-a-half year driving ban to five years, in the hope it might help the serial crim lead a “pro-social” life after his release from prison.