Brent Horwood: Alleged serial Bunnings thief, online scammer faces 150+ charges

An alleged serial con artist who was banned from every Bunnings store in the state stole thousands of dollars worth of goods in a suspected scam.

Brent Horwood fleeced thousands of dollars of items in repackaged boxes from Bunnings stores across Melbourne, including Mill Park, in 2019 and 2020. File picture.

An alleged serial thief used toilet suite boxes to fleece expensive items from Bunnings stores during an alleged two-and-a-half year crime spree, a court has heard.

Brent Horwood, 35, — who was banned from every Bunnings store in the state — appeared by video link from custody at the Ringwood Magistrates’ Court on July 13.

Court documents showed Mr Horwood’s alleged offending beginning with theft of a Mitsubishi Wagon in September 2019, through to breaching bail conditions and rorting a $3750 Microsoft Surface laptop in January 2022.

The matters surrounded deceptions including a string of online sales rorts, traffic offences, thefts and alleged drug possession.

The court heard Mr Horwood targeted Bunnings stores throughout Melbourne between October and November 2019 and allegedly carried out a series of deceptions.

Among the stores he visited, some on repeat occasions, were Mill Park, Eltham, Bayswater, Mernda, Broadmeadows, Taylors Lakes, Caroline Springs and Fairfield.

In most cases, Mr Horwood would allegedly pick items including toilet suites and fans from shelves, take them out of their boxes, and then fill them with other more expensive items.

He would go and pay for the original item, unboxed, and then head back inside the store to pick up the repackaged box, head through the check-outs and leave without paying.

Mr Horwood’s biggest alleged fleece was at the Taylors Lakes store on November 1, 2019, where he smuggled $2189 of power tool batteries into a $150 toilet suite box.

He was eventually arrested by police and store staff on November 17, 2019 during another attempted deception at the Caroline Springs store, where he’d packed $899 of home security items into a fan box.

Police searched Mr Horwood’s allegedly stolen wagon, where they allegedly found quantities of drugs including methamphetamine and GHB, an ice pipe, original number plates, and a “large quantity” of Bunnings receipts in the centre console.

He was ordered not to visit any Bunnings store in the state as part of bail conditions, but allegedly carried out another deception at the Mill Park store on January 26, 2020, taking $1278 of power tools packed into a $104 toilet suite box.

Despite being booked for a 90-minute hearing, the prosecution only managed to summarise part of Mr Horwood’s alleged offending.

Mr Horwood has been in custody for six months, and his defence lawyer, Thomas Crouch, asked for his client be assessed for a community corrections order in the lead-up to his next appearance.

Magistrate Ian McGrane refused Mr Horwood bail, with the matter to return to the court on August 15.