A group of men that went on a spree of break-ins, stealing a car, several golf buggies and trucking equipment from Bendigo businesses have been ordered to pay thousands of dollars compensation.
Thomas Odgers, 20, of Bendigo, was yesterday placed under a 12-month Community Corrections Order (CCO) and ordered to pay $6730 restitution after pleading guilty to 15 charges including theft of a motor car, criminal damage, and two counts of burglary.
In a sequence of break-ins between July and August last year, Odgers and five other friends were involved in stealing a Land Cruiser four-wheel-drive and smashing it into other motor vehicles, as well as causing criminal damage to property and businesses.
Accomplices Samuel Thomas, 19, Joel Coutts, 21, and Leigh Waddington, 26, were given similar corrections orders to Odgers, while co-accused Dylan Grant, 20, and Joel Dingle, 20, were handed CCOs without conviction.
The Bendigo Magistrates Court heard that after a 21st birthday party on July 27 last year, the men decided to “drive around and look for items to steal”.
After cutting holes through the fence of Fasso Transport in Bendigo East, they broke into a truck and stole 13 industrial ratchet straps.
The group also took a 20-litre container of truck wash, which they poured into the fountain in Charing Cross.
In a separate break-in on August 18, Thomas and Odgers went to Full Boar mining in Kangaroo Flat and stole the keys to a Land Cruiser, which they took for a joyride and smashed into a tip truck that belonged to the father of their friend.
On August 20, Thomas, Odgers, Waddington and Coutts went to Belvoir Park Golf Club in Big Hill and broke into the garage, stealing motorised golf buggies.
The group took four of the buggies for a joyride, crashing into each other and causing extensive damage to the buggies and the course’s greens.
Two of the buggies were abandoned at the course and another two were taken through bushland in Kangaroo Flat, before one was left in Golden Square and the other dumped in a ditch in Kangaroo Flat.
