A 33-year-old Shepparton man pleaded guilty in the Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to obtaining financial advantage by deception, attempting to obtain financial advantage by deception and making a false report to the police.
Leading Senior Constable Chris Cole said the man reported his grey Mazda 3 as stolen to police and Suncorp Insurance on April 22.
The man knew the car wasn’t stolen and was trying to obtain $38,000 of insurance money from Suncorp, which had provided him with a company car in replacement, Leading Sen Constable Cole said.
CCTV footage from the man’s Shepparton home showed him having a conversation with another man out the front while the car was parked outside at 12.44am before they both left, Leading Sen Constable Cole said.
The other man then walked to the car, used the remote to unlock it, and drove away at about 1.01am.
The car was later found in Broadmeadows on April 30.
The man’s defence solicitor Ian Michaelson said his client was not a willing participant in the offending and was “somewhat vulnerable” to the other man, whom he had met camping on a chance encounter.
Mr Michaelson said the man had “certain vulnerabilities”, as he was going through a relationship break-up and suffered from depression.
He had been “drawn into something he couldn’t manage” and had since learned a “significant lesson” about whom to associate with and showed genuine remorse, Mr Michaelson said.
Magistrate Simon Zebrowski told the man this “unsophisticated crime” was a waste of police officers’ time, who are “busy doing their job of serving the community”.
“Police are smarter than people give them credit for,” Mr Zebrowski said.
“You don’t need Sherlock Holmes to figure out what’s going on here.”
Mr Zebrowski placed the man on a 12-month adjourned undertaking to be of good behaviour and ordered him to pay Suncorp’s restitution of $1436.24 by February next year.
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