Ulas Tekin: Dope-loaded learner led cops on wrong way chase
A Hampton Park driver with green on board panicked when the red and blues came behind him so he ‘gassed it’, but got trapped in a dead end.
South East
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A learner driver sped off from cops, turned off his headlights and drove down the wrong side of the road in a potentially fatal pursuit.
Ulas Tekin led police on a chase because he was scared officers would find 14g of cannabis he had hidden in a pouch.
But the then 20-year-old didn’t know where he was going, ending up driving into a cul-de-sac and getting blocked in.
He also did a bottle shop run-through with two of his mates, nicking pre-mixed booze and scampering away.
Now 21, Tekin pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, drug possession and theft charges at the Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
Tekin was driving with two bud buddies along the South Gippsland Highway in Lynbrook at around midnight on April 29 last year.
The car belonged to a mate and had a suspicious rego, so cops pulled up behind it.
But as soon as they put their sirens and flashing lights on, Tekin took off at a fast rate of speed.
He turned off the highway and flicked off his headlights before crossing over to the wrong side of the road.
He continued on like that for a fair while, going the incorrect way around a roundabout and hitting chicanes as he sped along.
He then turned into a dead-end street, cops caught him and he was trapped.
Officers smelt cannabis inside the vehicle and searched Tekin, finding 14g of marijuana in a pouch.
He told police he led them on a chase because he didn’t want to get caught with drugs.
“I gassed it, I panicked because I had cannabis,” he said.
“I thought I could get away, but at the end of the day I f**ked up.”
And in December 2019 Tekin and two thirsty pals went to a Narre Warren South BWS and walked into the cool room.
They each then took a slab of pre-mixed drinks and ran out without paying, but they had been seen on CCTV.
Defence lawyer Gregory Hughan said Tekin was remorseful for his actions, was still young and had no priors of any kind.
He said his client used to have a problem with alcohol and cannabis but was now abstinent.
He said he had started working as a fence and gate installer and the mandatory licence ban would have a huge impact on him.
Magistrate Gerard Bryant said it was a “collision waiting to happen”.
“He is a young man, inexperienced, he switched off his lights and drove some considerable distance on the wrong side of the road,” Mr Bryant said.
“It was stupidity.
“He needs to realise and understand this sort of behaviour is inherently dangerous, he is fortunate someone was not seriously injured or killed.”
Tekin was placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond with conditions he pay $1500 to the court fund, do a road trauma awareness seminar and attend drug and alcohol counselling.
He was also disqualified from driving for 15 months.
