Ryan Wicks, 20, stole campervan with couple inside, pleads guilty to crime spree

A court has heard a drug-addled thief has no memory of stealing a campervan with a couple sleeping inside and taking them on a terrifying trip down the Great Ocean Road.

Victim Brock Momcilivic and his girlfriend Jedha Kinder with dog Pablo stand in front of their car and Camper that was stolen and driven away as they slept inside it. Picture by Wayne Taylor

A court has heard a drug-addled thief has no memory of stealing a campervan with a couple sleeping inside and taking them on a terrifying trip down the Great Ocean Road.

Ryan Wicks, 20, fronted the County Court at Geelong on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to a number of charges including perverting the course of justice, recklessly causing injury, burglary, reckless conduct endangering life, resisting and assaulting emergency workers and theft.

Wicks had been out of prison for just 11 days when he climbed behind the wheel of a Nissan Patrol parked in a road reserve at Cumberland River just before midnight on August 19 last year.

Mr Momcelivic’s car and camper trailer after the incident. The couple’s camping gear was scattered along the Great Ocean Road after the incident. Picture: Supplied

In statements read to the court by prosecutor Fraser Cameron, young Wallan couple Brock Momcilovic and Jedha Kinder recounted the terrifying moment they woke in their campervan – which was hitched behind the car – and realised it was hurtling down the road.

Ms Kinder became entangled in the campervan’s annex with the couple’s dogs and was briefly dragged along before the canvas tore and they were left behind, while Mr Momcilovic clung on for dear life inside the campervan.

“I woke up having no idea what was going on, I could hear the screams of my partner … then the screams stopped,” Mr Momcilovic wrote.

“I’ve never been so scared in my whole life.”

Ms Kinder said the ordeal had “changed (her) life forever” and gave her “night terrors for months”.

She sustained gravel rash burns, the court heard, and described a scar that will never go away with “tiny bits of rocks” that may never come out.

Ms Kinder said she didn’t leave the house for months, but the couple had since been camping. “I refuse to let the actions of someone else completely ruin my life,” she wrote.

A recording of Mr Momcilovic’s triple-0 call made from the moving campervan was played to the court, in which his fear and confusion were palpable.

He pleaded for help, at one point telling the operator: “I don’t want to die”.

The car’s clutch blew out at Lorne and Mr Momcilovic jumped out of the campervan.

Hours later, a shirtless Wicks was seen walking back towards Cumberland River.

Several days later, his crime spree continued with thefts across Geelong and a burglary in Ocean Grove, before he was arrested hiding in the attic of a North Geelong home on August 26.

Footage played to the court showed several officers wrestling Wicks to the ground as he violently resisted – even biting the leg of one officer.

While in custody, Wicks made several attempts between September 5-23 to get a witness to change his statement to police and tell police he was drug-affected when he made it.

Wicks’ lawyer, barrister Katie Powell, told the court her client had no recollection of stealing the campervan and was drug-affected at the time.

Wicks had a history of substance abuse and diagnoses of anxiety and depression, Ms Powell said, and had struggled at school amid a difficult upbringing.

Wicks will return to court on October 17.

Originally published as Ryan Wicks, 20, stole campervan with couple inside, pleads guilty to crime spree