A BENDIGO serial pest who inundated Victoria Police stations and thousands of random citizens with abusive phone calls cannot explain why he committed the offences.
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Dean Stewart Poot, 30, appeared in the County Court on Tuesday after he admitted to orchestrating the coordinated attacks in late 2018 and early 2019.
While defence counsel Charles Nikakis conceded Poot's crimes were serious, he said the 30-year-old did not have a motive or receive any benefits from the attacks.
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The court heard between June 16, 2018, and October 15, 2018, Poot set up a device - a Gigabyte Brix - with telephony software so he could conduct automated virtual telephone calls.
Between October 16 and October 18, Poot conducted a coordinated attack on Victoria Police's phone system.
Poot used the pre-programmed Gigabyte Brix software to call random numbers.
If the recipients of the calls answered, they heard abusive messages before the call was diverted to a police station.
The automated abusive messages included lines like, "I'll drive a pencil into your f****** ear" and "talk to me you f****** sl**."
The court heard 10,984 calls were diverted to Victoria Police stations across the state. The St Kilda Police Station alone received 262 calls in two hours.
The prosecution said the telephony attack prevented officers from making or receiving legitimate calls, which significantly disrupted police operations.
Poot also targeted random people through a similar electronic telephone system.
Between January 18, 2019, and February 28, 2019, Poot set up a virtual machine, which placed about 127,000 calls to random phone numbers.
The system also sent 23,400 text messages to people. The messages detailed pleas for help.
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Some of the call recordings were played to the County Court in July. They started with abusive messages from automated voices, before the call recipients became confused or distressed at the abuse.
One of the recordings showed a recipient calling the number that had sent the first text message. The call was instantly diverted to another unsuspecting person.
In that call, the two random citizens became aggressive towards each other because they each thought the other person was issuing the automated abuse.
The court heard between November 18, 2017, and June 14, 2019, Poot also created multiple phishing websites to obtain credit card details of unsuspecting people.
About 2500 people's personal information was stolen through the sites.
Poot used some of the stolen credit card details to purchase a 3DTEK Heavymill, valued at $6810, and CNC router valued at $4125.
In June 2019, Poot also deceptively obtained the credit history of at least six people.
Poot was arrested on June 14, 2019, and provided a no-comment interview to police.
He served 307 days of pre-sentence detention before he was released on bail in April last year.
Judge William Stuart said the offending was "very strange" and unlike anything he had come across in the criminal justice system.
Judge Stuart said Poot appeared to be a "serial pest" who had a "perverse desire" to control people and interfere with their lives.
"The randomness is a concern," the judge said. "There's a certain nastiness to it."
Defence counsel Charles Nikakis agreed Poot had been acting as a "serial pest", but submitted the 30-year-old did not interfere with any emergency situations.
Mr Nikakis said people who needed urgent support would have called 000.
The defence counsel said Poot had been on bail for more than 18 months and had complied with all of the conditions, including to not own or use a phone or computer.
Mr Nikakis said Poot had been using drugs at the time of the offending but was now clean and healthy.
The defence counsel submitted that the community would be best served if Poot could continue his rehabilitation through a community corrections order rather than further jail time.
Prosecutor Claire Nicholson said the offending was extremely serious, sophisticated, and premeditated.
Ms Nicholson said Poot lacked insight into his offending as he could not explain why he committed the crimes.
She said his lack of insight could impact his prospects of rehabilitation.
The prosecutor submitted that the seriousness of the charges warranted a further term of imprisonment.
Judge Stuart noted it would be particularly harsh to return Poot to prison after he had complied with bail for so long.
The judge said he was instead considering a lengthy community corrections order with time served.
The case was adjourned so Poot could undergo a corrections assessment. His bail was extended to a further County Court hearing on Thursday.
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