Magistrate Doug Dick, in Narooma Local Court on Thursday, October 12, commended Christopher James Taylor, 25, of Bega, for undergoing treatment for ice addiction. 

Taylor pleaded guilty to nine charges of dishonestly obtaining property and one charge of being a learner driver but not displaying L plates, and two charges of not being accompanied by a licensed driver.

He was sentenced to 200 hours of community service, fined $2200 and disqualified from holding a licence for 12 months.

The court also heard he had paid compensation of $750 to victims of his crime.

“The man before us is not the same man who committed the offences,” Mr Dick said, referring to Taylor’s successful completion of a residential ice treatment program with the Watershed program.

The magistrate said the future was now in Taylor’s hands and that he was back at home living with his parents on their dairy farm at Bega.

He hoped Taylor could use his life experiences to help other people in similar situations due to drug addiction.

According to police facts tendered to court, Taylor and his accomplice, Lauren Heather McNair, took a purse from a bag on Lewis Island, Narooma, and used credit cards to purchase cigarettes and alcohol at various retail outlets.

McNair, 21, of Tuross Head, was sentenced to 18 months’ jail with a non-parole period of nine months, in Batemans Bay Local Court on August 28.