Oakey teenager Aiden Zachary Morris pleads guilty in Toowoomba Magistrates Court to unlawfully using motor vehicles

A court has been told a 19-year-old’s fingerprints were found inside various cars that had been reported stolen from across the region.

An Oakey teenager with a penchant for riding around in stolen vehicles with friends has been released from jail and placed on probation.

Aiden Zachary Morriss, 19, appeared before Toowoomba Magistrates Court on Tuesday via video link from the prison to plead guilty to 15 offences including six counts of unlawfully using motor vehicles.

Those cars included a BMW in Oakey on November 25, 2022, a Toyota utility and a Mitsubishi Triton at Brookstead, at different times on December 8, and another vehicle which was driven through a fence at Pittsworth on December 8.

Morriss also pleaded guilty to unlawfully using two vehicles earlier as well as stealing electrical cable from a Pittsworth property on December 8, 2022, and possessing a small amount of cannabis and growing one cannabis plant at Tara on July 28, 2022.

His solicitor Brad Skuse, of Skuse Graham Lawyers, told the court the teenager only had two entries on his criminal history before this sentence and that these 15 offences were committed during a time Morriss was using cannabis.

Mr Skuse said the 19-year-old had been linked to the unlawful use of motor vehicle offences by fingerprints found in the vehicles or by CCTV footage which showed he was a passenger in the car and not driving.

His client had spent 67 days in custody which had given him time to get free of cannabis and upon his release he intended returning to Oakey to live with his mother, look for work and stay away from drugs and his former peers, he said.

Acting magistrate Kay Ryan took into account the 76 days Morriss had spent in pre-sentence custody and placed him on two years probation but ordered the convictions not be recorded.