AN Orange man has been jailed for at least a year after he escaped police custody and fled from the scene.
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Warren Alfred Moses, 26, of Garema Road, faced Orange Local Court via video link on Monday on fresh charges of driving while disqualified, escaping police custody and resisting or hindering police.
According to police facts, officers were patrolling Rifle Range Road at about 3am on November 3, when they spotted four people inside a green Ford Fairmont sedan parked on the side of the road.
Police pulled up beside the vehicle, but Moses started the car and travelled 100 metres, despite being disqualified from driving until 2031.
When police caught up, Moses was sitting in the rear seat and denied driving.
After initially refusing to get out of the car, Moses eventually exited and was searched.
But when he was instructed to put his hands behind his back to be handcuffed, he only put his left hand out before wresting it back and fleeing into bushland.
Police lost track of him, but later in the morning, the car’s owner told police he gave Moses the keys and Moses was arrested at 1pm at a Myora Place property.
The offences breached three suspended sentences in 2015 – two for stealing quad bikes from a Lidster property and a third for damaging Coronet Milk Bar’s front window.
In court, solicitor Lucy Mananga said he only travelled 100 metres and argued for a finding of special circumstances due to Moses’ drug use.
“He accepts that his behaviour after that was not acceptable,” she said.
“I can’t argue that [the breaches are] trivial, nor can I find good reasons to excuse this behaviour.”
Ms Mananga acknowledged Moses breached the three bonds.
“It was the first time using drugs for a whole week and he’s been in custody since November 3 so there’s been ample time, to use the vernacular, to dry out.”
But she said he was ready to go back to his partner and five children and he had struggled with ADHD and deaths in his family.
Magistrate Terry Lucas called him up on the bonds, resentencing him to 18 months’ full-time custody with a non-parole period of 12 months.
He fined him $600 for the resist charge.
“You were on conditional liberty and I remember telling you if you breached it, you would be going to jail.”