Cairns magistrate jails 18-year-old on two stolen car charges after hearing he committed 50 similar offences as a child

A young offender who was involved in 50 stolen car rides in Cairns and hit adulthood as Queensland introduced new sentencing rules, has been sentenced to 12 months jail.

An 18-year old with an “appalling” record of burglary and car stealing in Cairns as a child has been sentenced to jail under Queensland’s new sentencing regime that sees juvenile history included in adult sentencing hearings. Picture: Brendan Radke

A young offender who was involved in 50 stolen car rides in Cairns and hit adulthood as Queensland introduced new sentencing rules, has been sentenced to 12 months jail.

Cairns Magistrate Michael Dalton said that, had the meth-injector, 18, appeared a month earlier, his juvenile criminal history would not have been shared.

He would have been sentenced as a “youthful first-time offender” – probably to a period of probation with no convictions recorded.

But Queensland changed the rules around sentencing on February 28, and his juvenile criminal history now follows him into adulthood, the court was told.

Mr Dalton told the teenager he was “in a different world now” that he was 18.

“You are the first person I have sentenced under the new regime which means that I do now look at your criminal history … (and) you have an appalling criminal history.”

The 18-year-old man pleaded guilty to four offences and was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment after his juvenile history of more than 100 car and property offences was tendered to the court . Photo: QPS.

The court was told the man’s juvenile history included around 50 entries each for unlawful use of motor vehicles and another 50 for property crimes like stealing and burglary.

“There is … a level of immaturity in your offending because you think you can just do what you please, because you have not been subject to the adult sentencing world and therefore, penalties have been designed towards rehabilitation as opposed to deterrence and punishment,” Mr Dalton said.

The man pleaded guilty to unlawfully using two motor vehicles in mid-January, a fuel drive-off, and attempted burglary at a house on Christmas night.

The court was told the cars, a Subaru Forrester and a Subaru Liberty, were stolen on January 14 and January 16 respectively and police used tyre deflation devices on each occasion to stop the cars around the Manoora area.

Stinger tire deflation devices were used in Manoora to stop the two stolen cars driven by teen offenders in January this year.

Three other teenagers fled from each vehicle, aged between 13 and 16, the court was told.

Defence solicitor Blake Laman said the man was an injecting meth-user from an extremely disadvantaged background.

Mr Dalton said the man’s drug addition at such a young age was “very troubling to hear” and urged him to stay clean when he was released from prison or he would find himself back there quickly.

“I’ve been a lawyer for a long time and I’ve never ever ever heard a good story about meth. It will slowly wreck your body. It will wreck your mind. You’ll hurt the people you care about the most and you’ll spend your life in and out of prison – that is what will happen,” Mr Dalton said.

“Your friends are not people who are going to stop you – you have grown up in a pro-criminal environment; your own family has exposed you to criminal behaviours, substance abuse and domestic violence from a very young age, which has no doubt framed the way you look at the world and the way you interact with it.”

The young man has been a regular visitor to Cairns Court House and Magistrate Michael Dalton warned him he would be in and out of prison unless he kicked his meth addition. Picture: Brendan Radke

Mr Dalton sentenced him to 12 months prison, with a parole release date of April 17, 2025, to take into account the 66 days he had spent in custody already, his early guilty plea and young age.

The Cairns Post has chosen not to name the man in order to publish his child’s criminal history and the magistrate’s relevant sentencing remarks.

The Making Queensland Safer Act, passed on February 28, has changed the sentencing regime, there have been no changes to the Youth Justices Act, which prohibits publication of identifying information about a child.

Originally published as Cairns magistrate jails 18-year-old on two stolen car charges after hearing he committed 50 similar offences as a child