An ice addict who used a stolen credit card to access internet pornography unwittingly helped police to identify him as a burglar.
The man, 21, faced the County Court earlier this month.
He pleaded guilty to crimes including criminal damage, obtaining property by deception, theft, aggravated burglary, making a threat to kill, handling stolen goods and possessing a drug of dependence. The court heard he committed the offences last year, mostly within Wyndham.
Judge Liz Gaynor described a burglary that the man committed at a Hoppers Crossing home in September, as the “most serious” of the man’s offences in 2016.
She said he turned off the power at the house before forcing his way inside, while armed with a wooden baton.
When the owner of the house came to investigate the noise, the man demanded his car keys and other property. He told the owner he would kill him if he called police.
The man later used a credit card stolen from the victim to pay for internet pornography.
Judge Gaynor said police obtained an email address from these transactions which helped them discover the man’s identity.
He was also charged with committing other burglaries in Hoppers Crossing and Tarneit.
In a separate incident, in 2015, he broke into a unit and used a broken glass bottle to stab the male occupant four times in the stomach.
The man admitted to using “a gram or two” of ice every day.
Judge Gaynor sentenced him to a total sentence of four and a half years in jail. He has already served 235 days of this term in pre-sentence detention.
The man will have to serve a minimum of two years and three months before becoming eligible for parole.
