A man stole a milk tanker from Cobram and led police on a chase that lasted for hours before the truck became bogged at Nagambie, a court has heard.
Matthew Long, 45, of Barooga, pleaded guilty in Melbourne County Court to dangerous or negligent driving while pursued by police, damaging an emergency services vehicle, burglary, theft, being a prohibited person possessing an imitation firearm, and possessing a drug of dependence.
He also pleaded guilty to the summary charges of drug driving, using a phone while driving, and committing an indictable offence while on bail.
The court heard Long stole a $1.5 million Volvo B-Double truck from McColl’s Transport in Cobram shortly after 11.30pm on July 9 last year, leaving a note that said he was “taking the truck to get fixed so he could save ‘Kiwi’s’ job and get a job himself”.
The stolen truck was spotted by police about 3.06am on July 10, 2021, in Numurkah Rd, Shepparton, with police activating lights and sirens on their car to stop him.
Long stopped past the Balaclava Rd intersection in Shepparton, and was capsicum sprayed by an officer after he started to pull away.
Long drove on the nature strip and footpath, with the truck’s trailer colliding with the police car parked in front of him.
With another police car in pursuit, he drove through three red lights on Wyndham St, before stopping and reversing at the police car behind him near the bridge to Kialla.
He then drove off and at times was seen moving into the opposite lane for short periods.
Once on the Violet Town-Murchison Rd at Murchison, Long again stopped the truck and reversed at the police vehicle again.
Stop sticks were deployed by police at Goulburn Weir, causing the two front tyres to deflate.
It did not stop Long who slowly drove the 10.5 tonne truck across historic Kirwans Bridge — which has a three-tonne load limit.
The court heard Long called 000, but when police called him back at 4.33am he told them “he wouldn’t pull over because he needed to take the truck to Geelong to get serviced”.
Twenty minutes later he told police he was willing to pull over if the police backed off and did not use capsicum spray.
He eventually stopped on the Avenel-Nagambie Rd at Nagambie, where the truck became bogged on the side of the road shortly before 5am.
He then called 000 and said he had a gun.
After police negotiations, Long surrendered at 7.42am.
A search of the truck found a gel blaster imitation handgun, a black scope belonging to the gun, several bags of gel blaster pellets and 9.7g of cannabis.
He was also drug driving, did not have a driver’s licence, and was on bail at the time.
Defence barrister Bridie Kelly said the theft of the truck was not for financial gain other than “a strange sense of gaining employment”.
She said the ramming of the police vehicle was not “intentional”, rather that it “occurred in the context of him moving to the side and moving away”, with the back of the trailer collecting the police vehicle.
Ms Kelly also told the court Long had driven through the red lights while sounding his horn to warn other road users.
She also said the driving on the wrong side of the road was “very short lived” and any risk to other road users was limited given the time of night it happened.
Ms Kelly also said Long was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder and likely social anxiety disorder.
A Forensicare report writer also said he was convinced Long was “experiencing a manic episode of bipolar one at the time of the offending”,” Ms Kelly said.
“At the time of the offending, his mental health was impaired enough he didn’t know what he was doing was wrong,” Ms Kelly argued.
The court also heard Long had stopped using his bipolar medication.
Long remains in custody and will be sentenced in October.