Career criminal punches fellow inmate over cushion after bizarre crime spree

A career criminal locked in a Melbourne police cell while awaiting court over a bizarre 11-month crime spree didn’t help his cause when he punched a fellow inmate who pinched his cushion.

A career criminal locked in a Melbourne police cell while awaiting court over a bizarre 11-month crime spree hasn’t helped his cause by punching a fellow inmate who stole his cushion. Digitally altered generic image

A man has been jailed after a bizarre crime spree, which included trying to pump up the tyres on a stolen motorbike and, once caught, punching a fellow inmate who stole his cushion.

Dale Peter Forster, who has dozens of pages of priors, was this week jailed by Moorabbin Magistrates’ Court for an 11-month crime wave committed across the city.

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Forster pleaded guilty to 16 charges, including resisting and assaulting emergency workers, speeding, refusing a drug test, driving disqualified, failing to stop, dealing with proceeds of crime, unlawful assault and motor vehicle thefts.

The crimes were committed in Mornington, Southbank, Windsor, Kensington, Prahran and Melbourne between December 2017 and October last year.

His offending bordered on the peculiar. On October 5 last year Forster was trying to use a bicycle pump to inflate the tyre of a stolen motorbike in the basement of a block of apartments in High St, Windsor, when a man walked by, spotted the suspicious behaviour and called police.

They arrived but Forster managed to flee, pushing past officers and trying to punch one in the face before he fell down some stairs.

That didn’t deter him from escaping, and neither did OC spray, and he ran off.

But he left behind his bum bag containing his ID and drug paraphernalia and was arrested later that day hiding on the roof of a nearby building.

It was later discovered he had led police on a pursuit earlier that day.

The day after, while he was in the custody cells waiting for a court hearing, he lashed out and punched another inmate in the face because the man had taken his cushion.

Forster’s lawyer said his client had severe drug issues dating back decades, spent large periods of his life behind bars and was subjected to violence as a form of discipline as a young man.

Magistrate Jade Bott said Forster was “somewhat institutionalised” and a recidivist with no regard for the law.

She said there needed to be positive changes or “jail will become a revolving door.”

He was sentenced to nine months jail, minus 75 days already served.