Timothy Griffiths: Mount Macedon thief targeted unlocked cars to buy heroin
A professional thief took a Louis Vuitton bag and an unlocked Range Rover Sport during his Mount Macedon crime spree.
West
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A professional thief preyed upon wealthy Mount Macedon residents who wrongly thought their town was safe enough they could leave their cars unlocked and their keys inside, a court has heard.
Timothy Griffiths, of Woodend, on Wednesday pleaded guilty to a string of credit card, car theft, number plate theft and driving charges at the Sunshine Magistrates’ Court.
The court heard Griffiths’s offending typically involved finding unlocked cars at Mount Macedon, where many residents felt the area was safe enough to leave their doors unlocked and their keys and valuables inside.
Griffiths would rifle through the cars looking for wallets and keys, and, when successful, would return to Melbourne, sometimes in a freshly stolen car.
He would then use credit cards to buy packets of cigarettes until the cards were cancelled, and would trade the cigarettes for heroin at Brimbank.
Griffiths’s haul of stolen property included a $3500 Louis Vuitton handbag, and his car thefts included a Range Rover Sport, which was unlocked and in which the owner had left the keys.
The court head Griffith’s one-man crime spree began in March, with the theft of a Ford Escape.
He later stole the Louis Vuitton handbag from an unlocked Toyota Kluger, and used a credit card to buy a $10 meal at McDonalds and cigarettes from convenience stores, a petrol station and a supermarket in Reservoir.
Griffiths also stole wallets from an unlocked Hyundai and a Toyota Kluger, before using credit cards to buy more cigarettes in St Albans.
The Range Rover Sport he stole was found in St Albans, nearly 50km away from its owner’s Mount Macedon home.
A police prosecutor told the court Griffiths was “quite forthcoming to police” once he was arrested, admitting to “pretty much everything”.
Griffiths has been behind bars since April.
He is expected to be sentenced on August 3.
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