Eddie Hill in court for possessing drugs, suspected stolen bank card

When police searched a convicted armed robber in a pub car park, he couldn’t explain why he had a bank card belonging to an 84-year-old stranger. That was just the start of his problems.

Eddie Hill, 46.

A parolee who was caught with dangerous drugs, syringes and a suspected stolen bank card has been warned by a Rockhampton magistrate that if he continues committing crime he will go back to jail.

Eddie Hill, 46, pleaded guilty in Rockhampton Magistrates Court on June 28 to two counts of possessing dangerous drugs, and one count each of possessing suspected stolen property and failing to take reasonable care and precautions in respect of syringes.

Police prosecutor Clancy Fox said Hill was in the car park at the Glenmore Tavern in North Rockhampton on June 27 when he was searched by police, who found two blister packs of Oxycodone tablets, 1.2g of marijuana and several capped syringes.

Mr Fox said police also found a bank card that belonged to an 84-year-old man from Townsville.

“He had no explanation for how he came to be in possession of that card,” he said.

Hill was on suspended prison sentences and a parole order at the time of the offending and had an eight-page criminal record, the court heard.

He was previously sentenced to three years prison with immediate release on parole after pleading guilty in Rockhampton District Court on May 31 to one count each of burglary in company while armed, robbery while armed with an axe, unlawful use of a motor vehicle and possessing drugs.

Defence lawyer Brendan Gimbert said his client, who was a father, had “just picked up” the bank card and was not charged with using it.

Mr Gimbert said his client claimed someone else had placed the needles in his backpack, which weren’t packaged properly, and that he used the marijuana to help him sleep.

He said his client had instructed that if he was released that day, he would go to Drug ARM and get appropriate medication to help him sleep.

Magistrate Cameron Press said that if Hill, who was on parole for three years, kept committing offences he would end up going back to jail.

“If drugs are a problem you need to go and do something about it because, without question, you will be back before the court again and you will be going back to jail,” he said.

Mr Press sentenced Hill to three months’ prison, wholly suspended for 12 months.

A three-month suspended sentence imposed in a Rockhampton court on June 20 was wholly activated and ordered to be served concurrently with immediate release on parole.

Originally published as Eddie Hill in court for possessing drugs, suspected stolen bank card