Carrum Downs crook Matthew Tansey caught with ice and knife after cops smell cannabis in car
Canny cops followed their noses, pulling over a dodgy car in Frankston they thought smelt off. When they whiffed weed they knew they had hit the junkie jackpot, finding ice, knife and a stolen licence.
South East
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Keen-nosed cops who pulled over an unregistered car in a Frankston street sniffed out a career crook with bags of drugs, a weapon and a stolen driving licence.
Matthew Tansey was nabbed with a satchel full of goodies after the vehicle he was a passenger in was intercepted during a random stop.
Sensory-sensitive officers smelt an extremely strong aroma of cannabis inside the car and inside Tansey’s bag of contraband they unearthed ice, a knife and a nicked ID.
At Frankston Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday the 30-year-old from Carrum Downs pleaded guilty to drugs and weapon possessions, and dealing with proceeds of crime charges.
He also admitted breaching the Chief Health Officer’s directions by being out of the house without a lawful reason.
The court heard a police patrol noticed an unregistered BMW on Beach St, Frankston at around 1pm on September 22.
They intercepted the car and saw that both the driver and passenger Tansey were drug-affected, and sniffed a strong smell of cannabis emanating from inside the vehicle.
Officers then searched a satchel which Tansey had left on the passenger floor and found a glass tube, four zip-lock bags of ice each with 0.1g inside, a pocket knife designed to look like a key and a driving licence in someone else’s name.
The licence had been taken from a Mornington address in January.
Tansey admitted he had no lawful reason to be outside the house, and said the drugs were his and that he had split the gear into four “so he didn’t use it all at once”.
He said he had taken the licence from a mate’s table because the photo on it looked like his dead brother, but he denied the knife was his.
His lawyer said this level of offending was low considering some of Tansey’s past crimes, which included trafficking ice, car theft and recklessly causing serious injury.
He said he wasn’t using the quantity of drugs he used to, which was around 1g of ice and up to 30ml of GHB each day, and the eight days he had spent in custody should be enough of a punishment.
Tansey told the court that he was clean of everything except his prescription medication and his sister was going to help him when he got out.
Magistrate Charles Tan said although Tansey had extensive priors for drugs and dishonesty offending and this did warrant a jail term, it would not exceed the time he had already spent in custody.
He said Tansey would do well to take up his sister’s offer of support, seek help for his mental health issues and try and remain free of drugs in the future.
He was sentenced to eight days in jail, classed as time served, fined $1000 for the COVID-19 breach and released.
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