Melanie Petrinec | June 30th, 2011
Police pulled over Matthew John Davis, 32, on June 24 last year after they saw the safe he stole from his former workplace hanging precariously out the back of his four-wheel-drive.
Davis was sentenced to a 12-month community corrections order yesterday after pleading guilty in Cairns District Court to break and enter. Crown prosecutor Steve Morris said Davis went to Home and Community Care on Hartley St about 1am and tried to free the safe from the filing cabinet it was attached to with a hammer, but the safe refused to budge.
"That’s when this plan has turned sour for the defendant," Mr Morris said. "He had to wrestle with the filing cabinet to remove it."
The safe, still attached to the filing cabinet, was hanging out of Davis’s vehicle when police pulled him over.
"One would not have thought that was part of the initial plan," Mr Morris said.
Mr Morris said otherwise, Davis’s operation ran smoothly, with no fingerprints or DNA left at the scene.
There was a $400 float in the safe, which Mr Morris said Davis would have known about because he worked for the business for four days about two months beforehand.
Defence solicitor Derek Kordick said it was a "very stupid idea" that "screams of being intercepted by police".
Judge Philip Robin said the comedy of errors "would make a good movie".
Mr Kordick said his client had turned his life around after moving to Queensland to escape his family of criminals, and the incident was "a blot on his good record".
Davis was also ordered to pay $600 in compensation for damage to the safe.
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