A Warrnambool man with a long criminal history has been caught out by security camera footage using his bank card buying KFC after telling police someone else had used it.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Security camera footage showed Geoffrey Murray, 36, of Churchill Street, using his bank card to buy KFC in Oakleigh and other items worth a total of $82 in Preston and Grovedale.
Murray pleaded guilty in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court this week to to weapons offences, making a false report to police and attempting to obtain financial advantage by deception.
He was convicted, placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond and ordered to pay $1200 to the court fund.
He was found unsuitable to do a corrections order because of his physical ailments and restrictions of being on the sex offenders' register.
Police alleged that in Shepparton last year officers received a report of a suspicious man.
They checked out Murray who was in the passenger seat of his car at 4am.
They found two knives in the car and a set of nun chucks.
In December last year Murray went to the Warrnambool police station to report unauthorised transactions on his credit card.
However, an investigation uncovered security camera footage at a number of stores showing Murray using his own card.
He told police he owed them an apology "because I was there".
Lawyer Jack Rabl said Murray had been caught with items in his car that shouldn't have been there and his client was under personal and financial pressure when he made the false report to police.
He said it was not sophisticated offending.
Magistrate Mark Stratmann said the items Murray claimed had been illegally purchased were only worth $82 but there would have been ten times that amount spent on the police investigation.
He said the plan was doomed to fail because stores now often had security cameras.
Murray was last released from prison in October 2016 and Mr Rabl said his client had a limited capacity to do community work because of his physical ailments, which had led to him previously being wheelchair bound.
Have you signed up to The Standard's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in the south-west.
