A Gore man has gone to prison for a meth-fuelled crime spree that included defrauding a friend.
When Daniel Frank Medley (39) reached a verbal agreement with the friend early last year to paint her house, she put $2000 in his bank account.
She then contacted him several times over the next four months, asking when he would do the job, but Medley fobbed her off.
She finally ran out of patience and asked for her money back, but he did not return it nor complete the job.
A few months later, on September 17 last year, the defendant put $40 of petrol into his car at the Z station in Gore, then told the attendant he had forgotten his wallet and would go and get it.
He drove off without paying.
Medley then committed four burglaries between September 27 and October 30, taking items from garages and sheds on private properties.
Among his haul was frozen meat, a chainsaw, two hedge trimmers, motorbike helmets and a solar panel.
On April 6 this year, the defendant breached the terms of his electronically monitored bail by leaving his approved address.
When police went to arrest him the next day, he told them "I hope you’ve got your running shoes on" and sprinted off.
Police later found him in a farm pond.
At Medley’s sentencing in the Gore District Court on Wednesday, counsel Scott Williamson said the spree of offending was "a blip with identifiable causes".
They were the defendant’s addiction to methamphetamine and the end of a relationship during which he had managed to control his addiction.
Medley was sentenced on charges of obtaining $2000 by deception, theft (petrol), four charges of burglary, escaping police custody and sustained loss of traction in Albion St, Mataura, on March 24.
Calling the fraud against the defendant’s friend "a very cynical offence", Judge Duncan Harvey gave him discounts for his guilty plea and alcohol and drug issues, to reach a term of imprisonment of one year and 11 months.
Medley must pay reparation of $2500 to his victims, and is disqualified from driving for six months.
