Police found thief with stolen bank cards in her handbag inside Frankston Magistrates’ Court
A homeless woman pleaded guilty to 29 charges last year with her sentence deferred so she could clean up her act. But when she went to Frankston court, police found out she had offended again.
South East
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A woman awaiting sentencing on a raft of theft and drug-related charges was arrested inside a court with stolen bank cards in her handbag.
Sarah Jade Pollock was nabbed by police when she attended Frankston Magistrates’ Court last December.
Inside the homeless 38-year-old thief’s bag were seven nicked debit and credit cards — all in different people’s names.
She said she had “found one on the ground” but couldn’t say where she got the other six from.
As well as handling stolen goods Pollock also pleaded guilty to illegally possessing 13 prescriptions when she was discovered semi-conscious by police in a taxi in May this year.
At the time Pollock was on a community corrections order and on bail for a deferral of sentence for 29 offences she had pleaded guilty to in August last year.
She pleaded guilty to three more charges on Monday.
Pollock’s defence lawyer Jackson McLeod told the court she had long-term drug issues dating back to her teenage years, including injecting heroin and methamphetamine at the age of 14.
He said she knows she “needs to square her debt to society” and was hopeful of taking up counselling and being provided with accommodation assistance upon her release.
Magistrate Gerard Lethbridge said Pollock required drug and mental health support and also help finding a permanent home — or she would keep on ending up back behind bars.
“Not having anywhere to live, issues of homelessness are depressively common, especially in women (coming before the courts),” Mr Lethbridge said.
“How can we possibly give people any chance of rehabilitation if we can’t give them a roof over their heads?
“It just leads to a revolving door of abuse, trauma, drug use, jail then out of jail, no accommodation, more jail.”
Pollock appeared at court by video link, but technical difficulties cut the connection and she will be formally sentenced at a later date.
Mr Lethbridge said he will be imposing a six-week jail term — two weeks on top of the four weeks she had already served — to give her more time to sort out some accommodation.
He said her community corrections order would also restart when she is released.
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