Alan Pountney sentenced on 46 charges after Icarus Taskforce and ABF raids his home: Court

A Noble Park man has been sentenced after a “fascination with weapons and drugs” led to him collecting a stash of illegal items including a bomb.

Alan Pountney was sentenced in Dandenong Magistrates’ Court after a police raid on his home turned up weapons, drugs and a bomb.

A Noble Park man who blamed “hoarding” and a “fascination with weapons and drugs” for an Aladdin’s cave of illegal and deadly objects uncovered by police has narrowly avoided prison.

Alan Pountney, 43, was sentenced in the Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on July 4 after pleading guilty to 46 charges including cultivating narcotic plants, weapons possession and drug possession last month.

The court heard a joint operation between the Icarus Taskforce and the Australian Border Force raided his home in 2022, uncovering the arsenal of weaponry, drugs and a bomb.

The Taskforce Icarus raid turned up four mature cannabis plants throughout his Noble Park property.

On Thursday, Magistrate Nunzio La Rosa convicted Pountney and sentenced him to serve an 18-month community corrections order where he will complete 200 hours of community service.

“This is a significant amount of hours and it would have been higher if not for your medical condition,” Mr La Rosa said.

“It also indicates that you came close to an immediate jail term.”

In June, the court heard Pountney’s drug use began in 2005 after an assault left him with serious injuries, leading him to have extensive facial reconstruction surgery and unable to work.

During the raid in 2022, police uncovered one mature cannabis plant in the kitchen beneath a growth light, alongside three others in the garage, as well as an “improvised explosive device”.

Pountney was sentenced in the Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.

Officers also seized four machetes, a set of nunchucks, three extendible batons and an imitation Colt revolver with ammunition, a prescription medication stash that could stock a chemist and varying amounts of cocaine, MDMA and methamphetamines.

Pountney’s lawyer told the court his client also claimed to have a “problem with hoarding” in an attempt to explain why he stockpiled the prescription drugs, leaving some labelled and in the open, while others were concealed throughout the southeastern property.

Among the weapons found in his property, cops found a pair of nunchucks.

“He has a fascination with illegal weaponry and drugs,” the court heard.

“He feels that he has to have them in his possession at all times.”

The court heard Pountney had also been the victim of a home invasion in 2019, after which he came into the possession of the multiple machetes.

“The weapons were for his own safety, your honour,” his lawyer said.