Brian Kessells: Hampton Park druggie car thief crashed, slept on road
Despite spending large parts of the past 20 year in court or jail, a 46-year-old Hampton Park car thief has gone back to his druggie, stealing ways.
South East
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A crazy car-thieving crim was so off his head on drugs he didn’t know he had crashed his ride into a roundabout, a court has heard.
Brian Nathan Kessells — who has never held a licence — then drove the smashed car around the corner and fell asleep behind the wheel, leaving the mangled vehicle stationary in the middle of the road.
In a series of drug-fuelled crimes the ice abuser also stole another car, led cops on a chaotic chase across the southeast and nicked a Mazda from a mate who had let him stay at her house.
The Hampton Park 46-year-old has been the subject of multiple warrants and repeatedly failed to attend court.
Kessells pleaded guilty to a raft of driving, drugs and bail breach charges at the online Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
The court heard on December 27 last year another driver saw him behind the wheel of a car bearing stolen plates swerving all over Ivanhoe roads.
As she followed him she watched his car smash into a roundabout and blow a tyre, but he continued on regardless.
He then turned into a side street, stopped in the centre of the road and promptly passed out.
Cops came and he tested positive for ice, and also had a bag of cannabis with him.
He told officers he “couldn’t remember any accident”, the dope was his and he had injected ice the night before.
He was wanted on a multitude of warrants at the time and remanded in custody.
In September 2019 he was driving a BMW stolen from Pakenham and seen racing down the Monash Freeway in Dandenong at high speed.
He failed to pull over and managed to evade police, dumping the car in Hampton Park in the early hours of the morning.
He told arresting officers he wasn’t the driver involved in the chase and he had bought the car off an unnamed mate.
In March 2019 he was caught in a car with stolen plates in a Doveton pub car park and in November 2019 he stole a pal’s sedan after she had kindly let him stay at her Hampton Park home.
Kessells has a very long history, including convictions for robbery, resisting police, assaults, thefts, drugs and parole violations.
His defence lawyer said his client “had had enough” of the criminal life and wanted to go straight.
He said the three months he had spent on remand had been sobering and he wanted to work as a handyman with his dad when he gets out.
Magistrate Andrew Halse said Kessells had been given multiple opportunities to rehabilitate in the past and spurned them.
He said the extraordinary driving, the police chase, the car thefts and constant court order breaches warranted more jail time.
“Three months really isn’t close with this type of offending and his history,” Mr Halse said.
“I need to protect the community from this outrageous behaviour.”
Kessells was remanded to be sentenced on March 25.