Angus Taylor fronts Geelong court, pleads guilty to crime ‘spree’

A thief smashed a hospital window with a baseball bat, and stole a watch, a walkie-talkie and thousands of dollars worth of alcohol to fund his drug addiction, a court has heard.

Angus Taylor, 21, pleaded guilty in the Geelong Magistrates Court to numerous charges following a crime spree between September and December 2024.

A thief smashed a hospital window with a baseball bat, and stole thousands of dollars worth of alcohol to fund his drug addiction, a court has heard.

Angus Taylor, 21, appeared in Geelong Magistrates’ Court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to a number of charges across six police briefs.

Magistrate Simon Guthrie placed Taylor, who was supported in court by his parents, on a two-year community corrections order (CCO) for the offending, which his lawyer Elina Sisley said could “only be described as a spree”.

Police prosecutor Senior Constable Kiley Gray told the court that on September 3 last year, Taylor smashed a window of Geelong hospital’s emergency department with a baseball bat he had in his car.

When police arrived, Taylor got back into his 2004 Holden statesman and drove back up the exit ramp towards Bellerine St, giving police the middle finger as he passed.

The court heard Taylor turned off his headlights as he entered the intersection on the wrong side, before driving down Bellerine St and onto Little Malop, then crashing into a car on the corner of Malop and Yarra streets.

Another man had been inspecting his car, the court heard, and was only centimetres away from being hit himself.

Taylor didn’t stop, however he ultimately handed himself in.

Between September and December last year, Taylor went to numerous liquor stores in Geelong, sometimes in company with co-accused and filled shopping baskets with pricey bottles of spirits before leaving without paying, in all pilfering more than $6600 worth of alcohol.

In October, Taylor stole a Seiko watch worth $1100 from Prouds Jewellers in Leopold, used a hammer to smash a convenience store window and stole a two-way radio from JB-Hi-Fi Waurn Ponds.

He was caught bringing a “violent looking knife” to Geelong courthouse in December.

Ms Sisley told the court Taylor had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and had no prior history, but she conceded the offending was incredibly serious, and were committed to fund Tylor’s drug addiction.

Taylor had been using ice since he was 15, the court heard, and his drug use had spiralled out of control amid Taylor suffering homelessness since August last year.

He had attempted to attend rehab, Ms Sisley said, but drugs remained an ongoing concern, although his usage had decreased.

Mr Guthrie said Taylor’s offending included several incidents that were “really disturbing”, including the hospital incident.

Ms Sisley said Taylor had dropped his then-partner at the hospital and had acted rashly.

“Why’d he get a baseball bat? How rash is that?” Mr Guthrie asked, noting the trauma the incident likely produced, and “heaven knows what delays that put on the emergency department that night”.

Constable Gray said “all sentencing options” were open to the court, including jail.

“Not only did he put other people at risk in the community, he also put himself at risk,” she said, noting Taylor deliberately turned off his headlights.

Taylor lost his licence for 12 months and will have to return to court in June for monitoring.

No conviction was recorded.

Originally published as Angus Taylor fronts Geelong court, pleads guilty to crime ‘spree’