Swig from wine bottle leads to man’s conviction | Cowra Guardian Leave a comment

A 26-year-old Wyangala man has been given an 18-month supervised community correction order at Cowra Local Court.

Dion Forsyth Scott, of Blue Mantle Rd, was before the court for sentencing in relation to an aggravated break and enter.

According to police documents on August 6, 2020, Scott’s victim closed the door to a shipping container on their winery without locking it and returned to their residence.

During the night, two co-accused opened the shipping container with Scott following them in.

All three went through the container, with Scott taking $125 worth of cash and drinking from a wine bottle.

The next day, the victim found a partially drunk wine bottle in the garden, noticed a forklift battery had been taken and some petty cash had been stolen.

They contacted police and DNA evidence was taken from a wine bottle. Testing matched it to Scott.

Scott’s solicitor, Clive Hill, told the court his client had had an issue with alcohol use but had since sought counselling for it.

“He’s reduced his alcohol intake quite considerably, where he was drinking daily, he now only drinks once or twice a week,” he said.

“He takes full responsibility for his part in the criminal enterprise, though he wasn’t significantly involved with the break and enter.”

In sentencing, Magistrate Jillian Kielly said the offending had been opportunistic with not a great amount of items and cash stolen.

“He has a fairly limited record and certainly no offences of this kind on it,” she said.

“Notwithstanding the seriousness of these offences, it is most appropriate to sentence him to a community corrections order.”