The Geelong criminals stealing from, beating and threatening their own parents
For some lowly Geelong criminals, even their parents aren’t safe. Here are some convicted offenders who have stolen, assaulted and threatened the people who raised them.
Geelong
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SOME Geelong parents are being forced to seek protection from their own children as crimes against older people climb.
In just this month alone, two vulnerable and now “heartbroken” parents were forced to turn to the local justice system to hold their own adult children to account for the crimes committed against them.
For Greg Bee, father of convicted man Deniel Bee, discovering that his own son was behind the $63,000 theft from the family’s well-established South Geelong music shop was devastating.
He told the Geelong Advertiser there were “no winners”.
“I’m just so disappointed in what he’s done while he was working here and betraying me over so many years,” Mr Bee said.
“To think my little boy would do all of that.”
Local man Ben Cotter, meanwhile, was told he should be ashamed of himself after robbing his mother of $45,000 to spend on online dating.
Magistrate Franz Holzer told Cotter he should be “ashamed” of himself for the “disgraceful behaviour” against the woman he was charged with taking care of.
More adults than ever are appearing in Geelong’s local courts for targeting their parents with a range of offences of varying levels of seriousness, including theft, damaging property and for launching brutal assaults against them.
According to a May 2022 report from the Sentencing Council of Victoria, parents and step-parents were the protected people named in 8 per cent of family violence intervention orders that were finalised in the state’s Magistrate Court between 2011 and 2020.
In Geelong specifically, 601 people aged above 55 were the victims of a family violence incident in the 12 months to September 2022, according to data from the Crime Statistics Agency.
This was an increase of 5.8 per cent from 2021 and an increase of 10.27 per cent from the 2020 reporting periods.
It is the highest number of family violence incidents recorded against this age group in the past five years, with just 349 offences recorded in the 12 months to September 2018.
In some instances in the past year, adult children turned their rage on their own parents and made them the victims of brutal assaults.
This was the case for Corio’s Neithan Newtown, who threw his mother against a wall and punched her in the face.
When sentencing him, Mr Holzer told him he needed to focus on having more “respectable behaviour”.
Here are some of the Geelong residents who targeted their parents:
DENIEL BEE
A popular South Geelong music shop lost more than $63,000 in three years. A court heard in January this year that an audit of the company pointed the blame at the owner’s son.
Between June 2016 and June 2019, Geelong man Deniel Bee, 45, stole $63,939 from the Fyan St business, Music Workshop Geelong, by redeeming customer credits for cash, completing second cash-ups of the store and having customers deposit into his accounts.
He pleaded guilty in the Geelong Magistrates Court on Thursday.
His father, Greg Bee, said he never wanted his son to go to jail but “hoped he would learn his lesson and go on to a happy future”.
“There’s no winners in something like this,” Greg Bee said.
BEN COTTER
A magistrate told a Geelong man who spent $45,000 of his “vulnerable” and elderly mother’s money on online relationships over a year that he should be “ashamed of himself”.
Between October 2020 and April 2021, Ben Cotter was living with his mother and assisting her with healthcare needs while making several large payment son her credit card.
His defence lawyer, Hillary Russell, told the Geelong Magistrates Court on Wednesday that Cotter was using the money on the “online relationships” he turned to during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ms Russell said Cotter had “experienced significant obesity” during this time and was struggling with the pandemic.
ASHLEY BOROS
A Geelong woman grabbed a kitchen knife and threatened to cut her own mother’s throat if she called police for help, a court was told.
After sending threatening text messages over the course of a month, Ashley Boros, 23, was verbally abusing her mother in their Ocean Grove home when the terrifying incident with the knife took place.
Boros pleaded guilty to making threats to inflict serious injury and making threats to destroy property, as well as theft and driving while suspended charges in the Geelong Magistrates Court last month.
In July and August 2021, Boros sent several threatening messages to her mother, including telling her mother she would make sure she “touched the bottom of her grave early” and to wait and “see how scary I will be” if her mother continued to argue with her.
Boros also threatened to smash her mother’s car and attempted to throw objects into the house before she was stopped by a partner.
KATARINA SLUGA
A Geelong aged care worker was sentenced in July 2022 for failing to provide adequate care and medicine to her elderly mother.
Katarina Sluga pleaded guilty in the County Court of Victoria to one count of negligence causing serious injury.
In October 2018, police attended a Geelong address for a welfare check after neighbours reported a smell of decay.
They found the house in a dilapidated state with rubbish bags and faeces on the floor. Appliances, such as the toilet and washing machine, were broken and officers counted about 30 cats.
Sluga’s mother, Lidia Sluga, was found underweight and suffering from pressure sores. Had she continued to go without medical intervention, the court heard Sluga’s mother would have died.
NEITHAN NEWTON
A Geelong man learnt his fate in July 2022 after throwing his mother against a wall by the throat.
Earlier that same year, Neithan Newton, 23, was drinking heavily when he arrived at his mother’s house around 4am.
The court heard while the two were in a bedroom, Newton, who pleaded guilty to the assault, became violent and started swearing.
He pushed his mother against the wall by her throat.
They both fell to the ground and Newton punched his mother in the face during the scuffle.
LACHLAN DEWAR
A Norlane man stormed into a house and broke two windows to make a bizarre demand of his biological father.
Lachlan Dewar, 37, entered his father’s Belmont home in an attempt to obtain an apology letter from the older man.
Barrister Amanda Dickens told the Geelong Magistrates Court in March 2022 that Dewar had provided a handwritten letter that said, “you ain’t my father, I want a letter of apology”.
He went on to say if he did not get the apology, “I will destroy you”.
Dewar, who pleaded guilty, fought his father and then fled when police were called to the scene.
EDWARD VON MOGER
A Geelong bodybuilder faced court for trashing his parents’ house during a drug-induced psychosis, a court heard in September 2022.
Edward von Moger, 32, appeared at the Geelong Magistrates Court and pleaded guilty to charges of unlawfully causing criminal damage at his parents Torquay home in May the same year.
The court heard von Moger arrived at his parents’ house and ate magic mushrooms that were growing in the backyard.
He went into a “heightened” state and began smashing things inside his parents’ bathroom, including the shower head.
He emerged in a “manic state” and smashed a bedroom window and a picture window in the living room.
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