Luke Bisby, 43, pleads guilty to 28 drug, burglary, dishonesty charges

A magistrate has warned a man who pleaded guilty to 28 charges, including drug possession, burglary, dishonesty and driving offences, to clean up his act.

Luke Bisby. Picture: Facebook

A Geelong drug addict was emotional when he found out he’d be spending the next year behind bars, as a magistrate warned he had to “face the reality” of his actions.

Luke Bisby, 43, appeared in Geelong Magistrates Court on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to 28 charges, including possessing cannabis, ice and cocaine, burglary, theft, criminal damage, trespassing, failing to answer bail, handling stolen goods, dealing in the proceeds of crime, possession of cartridge ammunition, breaching a corrections order and cultivating cannabis.

Bisby also pleaded guilty to a number of driving charges including four counts of speeding, three counts of driving while suspended, three counts of failing an oral fluid test and one count of driving while disqualified.

Bisby had been set for a committal hearing, however several charges were withdrawn upon Bisby’s guilty plea.

No victim impact statements were lodged with the court relating to the offences.

Bisby had 143 days of pre-sentence detention, prosecutor Brad Hardisty told the court.

Mr Hardisty said Bisby had shown a “failure to engage at all” with corrections orders.

Bisby appeared in court via videolink from prison, where he was in protective custody, the court was told, after being “stood over in the (prison) yard” because he had been receiving methadone and morphine for his drug addiction.

Bisby’s lawyer, Jonathan Miller, said his client was “serious about taking responsibility for his offending” and had a “long history of drug dependence” since he began using cannabis at the age of 13.

Mr Miller said Bisby began to use amphetamines when he was in his late teens, and used heroin and ice in his 20s, before stopping for a number of years.

However, Mr Miller said Bisby had relapsed and “fallen back into the same sort of lifestyle”.

Mr Miller noted Bisby had been diagnosed with ADHD, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and suspected PTSD.

Bisby was supported in court by his ex-partner, with whom he had three children.

In December 2022, the couple’s 17-year-old son was found dead, the same month Bisby was placed on a community corrections order.

Following this, Mr Miller said Bisby’s grief “snowballed”, contributing to his offending.

Magistrate Franz Holzer said Bisby’s compliance with corrections orders “hasn’t been great” and said the sentence he would impose was “really more a question of how long”.

“On the prospects of rehabilitation, one has to be pretty guarded,” Mr Holzer said.

Mr Miller asked the court for a straight jail sentence, as a corrections order was “setting him up to fail”.

Mr Holzer warned Bisby he was risking going down an unfortunate path and needed to “reflect carefully” on his future.

“I think you have the face the reality that if you continue to offend … you’re likely to spend considerably further and continually longer periods of time in custody,” Mr Holzer said.

Bisby was sentenced to an effective 12 months in prison.

Originally published as Luke Bisby, 43, pleads guilty to 28 drug, burglary, dishonesty charges