Sophie McCarthy: ‘Drug-affected’ handler sober in court - this time
A cooked crook who previously turned up at an online hearing off her head on drugs wisely didn’t make the same mistake twice.
South East
Don't miss out on the headlines from South East . Followed categories will be added to My News.
A woman who bizarrely attended court while under the influence of drugs wisely didn’t repeat her strange substance-affected showstopper a second time.
Sophie Louise McCarthy came back to Frankston Magistrates’ Court on Friday after her original case had to be halted when the magistrate realised she was as high as a kite.
During that first hearing the Hastings 33-year-old looked dazed, disorientated and disinterested.
She couldn’t work out how to turn her camera around, and once she did, she kept wandering off screen.
When she was in view her eyes were glazed, she was fidgeting and didn’t seem to be paying any attention to what was going on.
A few minutes into the police summaries being read out, Magistrate Richard Pithouse stopped the case.
“Is your client drug-affected?” he asked.
“I have grave concerns that she is, she certainly appears it today.
“Her eyes, her movements, her facial interactions - I’m not a doctor but I’ve been around courts long enough to know when someone is drug-affected.”
She was on bail at the time of the hearing – with one of the conditions being that she did not use drugs.
This time McCarthy was far more attentive, cooperative and involved in proceedings.
She pleaded guilty to a series of handling stolen goods, obtaining property by deception, drug possession and bail breach charges.
The court heard police raided McCarthy’s home several times during 2018 and 2019.
They found a stolen motorbike, a generator, two welders and a gas bottle, nicked bank and Medicare cards, driving licences and even a RSL card belonging to someone else.
They also located a chequebook that had been pinched in a Moorooduc burglary which was then used to set up a fraudulent bank account.
McCarthy told officers she didn’t take any of the items but admitted she knew some of them had been stolen and were being stored at her home.
And in May last year she happened to be at a Mt Eliza motel when police raided the premises looking for someone in relation to a firearm and extortion investigation.
They searched her and found she had bags of ice weighing 1g, as well as a gram of heroin.
Defence lawyer Amity Krieger said McCarthy knew she had a drug problem and was keen to get help and support to deal with her addictions.
Magistrate Pithouse placed her on a 12-month drug and mental health-based community corrections order and told her she must do 75 hours of unpaid work.
