Tyson Weekley rams police cars at Sidhu Car Wash, Mount Clear

A learner driver tried to escape the police when they boxed him in at a Mount Clear car wash, forcing them to smash his window and pepper spray him.

Sidhu Car Wash in Mount Clear, Ballarat. Picture: Google Maps

A learner driver with a knife and a light bulb stuffed with ecstasy rammed police cars who boxed him in at a Ballarat car wash and tried to run away after being pepper sprayed.

Tyson Ashley Weekley, a 20-year-old roof tiler, appeared at Ballarat Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday over an incident at Sidhu Car Wash in Mount Clear on the evening of April 17, 2024.

Weekley was at the wash in a ute that was reported stolen from Torquay in October 2023 and bore false number plates when two unmarked police cars positioned themselves behind and in front of him.

He started his ignition when he saw the police and accelerated, colliding with the front of the car in front of him, then reversing and hitting the one behind him, and then going forward again.

Weekley faced Ballarat Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.

Police broke the driver’s side window of Weekley’s car and used OC spray.

He ran away a short distance and was arrested.

Police found in his possession a fold-out knife, a bag of meth, and a vial and eydropper of 1,4-Butanediol.

He also had a light bulb, inside of which was a bag with four MDMA tablets.

Weekley pleaded guilty to aggravated reckless exposure to a police officer, resisting arrest, stealing a car, possessing drugs, having a controlled weapon, and driving without a supervisor as a learner.

Magistrate Guillaume Bailin said there was a “patent obviousness” the officers, despite being in unmarked cars, were from the police, despite Weekley’s belief the incident was “an attack”.

The court heard the offending occurred in the context of “pretty full-on” drug use.

Weekley will return to court on October 14.

He has spent 167 days in custody.