A roundup of court and crime in Mildura through March and April

From a Snapchat perv who targeted little girls to a remorseless thug who viciously assaulted three, here are the latest crooks to be hauled in front of Mildura court.

It has been a busy few weeks with a variety of crims fronting court in Mildura.

From a Snapchat perv who used his social media to send explicit messages to underage girls over a four-year period to a remorseless thug who assaulted three men in a local beer garden, here are the crimes that have graced the Mildura court system over the past few weeks.

Snapchat Perv:

Dion Smith pleaded guilty to several charges relating to sending explicit sexual images to underage girls on the messaging app Snapchat

Dion Smith sent several nude images and sexually explicit videos to several underage teen girls, most of whom were his co-workers at Bunnings.

Smith sent images and videos to the underage girls, including one who was aged 15 at the time of the offending.

He sent disturbing messages to the underage victims along with the imagery, with one asking, “Is it weird I want to take your virginity?”

Four Victim Impact Sentences were read out before Smith was sentenced. One victim told the court, “He knew I was a kid,” before detailing how the offending had ruined her relationship with her father.

Smith was sentenced to eight months behind bars and given an 18-month community corrections order upon his release. He has appealed that sentence.

He was put on the sex offenders register for 15 years.

Creep records woman’s private conversations:

Ozkan Uygun planted a listening device in a woman’s car and sent her over three hundred threatening text messages over a three-month period.

The 30-year-old placed a Nokia device under the driver’s seat of the victim’s vehicle and used it to listen to private conversations.

He was also caught at the victim’s address in February. He was caught on his and knees skulking around the victim’s car, before fleeing when he was spotted.

When reporting the incident to police, the victim told officers they “didn’t feel safe in their own home” anymore.

Magistrate Patrick Southey remarked the charges had a “disturbing, creepy element.”

Uygun pleaded guilty to charges of stalking, using a carriage service to menace and installing a listening device to listen to a private conversation without consent.

He was sentenced to three days behind bars, reckoned as time served, along with a community corrections order which will last for two years.

Scammer avoids jail after pocketing more than $100K in GST scam:

Nathan Hynes has avoided jail despite pleading guilty to involvement in a sophisticated GST scam which saw him pocket more than $100,000 Picture: Supplied

Nathan Hynes pleaded guilty to several charges related to defrauding the government out of more than $100,000.

Hynes claimed he used a third party to execute the fraud, but stopped short of naming just who the third party was.

He told the court that he, paid the anonymous person, “a couple of grand for every ten grand I got.”

Hynes posed as a vineyard labourer in December 2019 in order to obtain an ABN. Then in 2022 he registered for GST and that is when his mystery accomplice lodged no less than nine fraudulent Business Activity Statements (BAS), with the proceeds landing in Hynes’ bank account.

He was caught as part of Operation Protego, an initiative by the Australian Taxation Office specifically aimed at cracking down on such fraudulent schemes.

The scammer was handed a three-month suspended sentence and an 18-month good behaviour bond.

Drug dealer told to leave town:

Zac Tatchell was busted by police with a stash of coke and ice along with and $14,000 in cash.

Tatchell pleaded guilty to dealing meth after police found a Ziploc bag containing the drug and incriminating text messages on his mobile phone.

When caught, he told police the $14,000 was winnings from online gambling and he had planned to use the money to send himself to rehab.

The sitting magistrate, Tatchell’s parents, his lawyer and Tatchell himself all agreed in court that rehab was a good idea, still, and that Tatchell should leave Mildura.

“Get out of town and don’t come back, except to visit your parents from time to time. Please don’t come back here,” Mr Southey said.

“I want to get out of there. I agree with you 100 per cent. There’s no point in me going back to Mildura,” Tatchell agreed.

Tatchell was sentenced to six months behind bars, with 156 days reckoned as time served.

Men savagely bash three in local beer garden:

Josh Valerio and his co-accused savagely attacked three men in the beer garden of a pub, leaving one of them hospitalised.

Valerio told police in the immediate aftermath of the attack “I did what I had to do”.

On March 11, 2023, Valerio and his co-accused approached three men in the beer garden of a pub that they had beef with.

After exchanging words, Valerio and his co-accused attacked the men for nearly two minutes despite the three victims not fighting back.

He was lambasted by sitting Magistrate Patrick Southey who said “there was not a shred of self defence here”.

Valerio was given a $6000 fine and told that if it wasn’t for his guilty plea, he would have been spending a month behind bars.