Scott Quilliam pleads guilty over New Year’s Day home invasions

A 20-year-old burglar stopped to get chocolates in between savagely attacking a sleeping woman and ram-raiding homes using her stolen car during a bizarre New Year’s Day crime spree.

Scott Quilliam

A home invader brutally bashed a sleeping woman while robbing her house during a bizarre New Year’s Day crime spree.

Scott Quilliam, 20, of no fixed address, ransacked a Grovedale home after gaining access by standing in a garden bed and removing a window’s flywire about 3.15am on January 1.

Inside the Torquay Rd home he pilfered items including a set of car keys hanging on a hook – but he wasn’t finished yet.

His victim was asleep in her bed, oblivious as he entered her room and grabbed her iPhone.

She was woken moments later when Quilliam slammed a piece of wood into her head.

The blow caused swelling and a 12cm cut, which required stitches, but the woman was able to use a curtain pole to fend Quilliam off.

He fled in her car – making off with electronic devices, skincare products and some Lindt chocolates – as the bleeding woman ran out onto the street where a witness called triple-0.

At 3.29am Quilliam stopped at a Moorabool St service station where he used the woman’s bank card to buy drinks and more chocolates.

He then drove to Hamlyn Heights where he began attempting to ram-raid houses at around 4.20am.

He drove into the garage roller doors of three different homes, buckling and damaging them.

The occupants of two were not home, but an elderly woman lived on her own in the third.

Quilliam managed to get inside her garage and began loading tools into the stolen car, which was wedged in the damaged door.

The court heard that at the time of the offending, Quilliam was two weeks into a community corrections order and also on bail.

Quilliam appeared via videolink at the Geelong Magistrates Court on Tuesday and pleaded guilty to nine charges including two counts each of aggravated burglary, theft and intentionally damaging property, as well as recklessly causing injury, driving while disqualified and obtaining property by deception.

His lawyer, barrister Thea Casey, argued the case should stay in the lower court, where Quilliam might get a lighter sentence.

The prosecution opposed her application, reckoning the seriousness of the crimes meant the County Court was a more appropriate jurisdiction.

Ms Casey told the court her client was remorseful, “distressed” by his offending and acutely aware of the “concrete” impact it had on his victims.

The court heard Quilliam had been an apprentice carpenter, before a “rapid entry into the justice system” lead to him being homeless and abusing drugs.

Now medicated and assessed by a psychologist, Quilliam was in a better place and his prospects of rehabilitation were “good”, Ms Casey told the court.

“He’s not yet fully entrenched or institutionalised in a life of crime,” she said.

Magistrate Ann McGarvie said it was “inappropriate” for the matter to stay in the lower court.

“I can’t think of a more serious aggravated burglary … than for someone to be asleep in their bed, at 3am, and to be woken up by a burglar hitting them in the head with a piece of wood,” she said.

“It must have been the most horrifying event I can imagine.”

Quilliam will appear in the County Court on September 23 for a plea hearing. 

Originally published as Scott Quilliam pleads guilty over New Year’s Day home invasions