A 35-YEAR-old man who was found with copper pipe and wire looted from the former Tip Top Bakery will have to complete 50 hours' community service after he told corrections officers it was a victimless crime.
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Luke Edward Hines, of McLachlan Street, faced Orange Local Court on charges of dealing with the proceeds of crime and possessing an explosive following two police raids of his home.
Police said officers executed a search warrant on January 9 last year where they located a railway track explosives box in a television cabinet, containing four impact-sensitive explosives.
Then on April 26, after having arrested a woman at the bakery and seeing the walls stripped the day before, police attended the property with another search warrant and found a large amount of copper pipe and wire in the backyard.
The pipe had been cut and placed into bins, some of them identical to those at the bakery.
The copper weighed in at 936 kilograms, worth an estimated $5830.
He needs to continue to attend to his [impulsiveness] and contact with people in the drug culture.
- Magistrate David Day
After his arrest on May 1, Hines told corrections officers he started using methamphetamine five years ago, the crime was motivated by a lack of finances and he intended to sell the copper.
While he managed to abstain from ice for three weeks, he also claimed the crime was victimless because the factory was abandoned.
Solicitor Neil Jones said Hines had the explosives for 10 years and forgot about them.
"It appears in fact my client's partner removed the wire from the bakery, brought it home and the following morning, my client saw it in the shed," he said.
"This is a classic case of where ice can take a very successful person in life."
Mr Jones said Hines was a qualified mechanic and prior to drug addiction ran a business for eight years.
He said Hines' co-accused, a woman who was arrested inside the Tip Top bakery, was given a community-based jail sentence.
Magistrate David Day said Hines had "reasonable" prospects of rehabilitation.
"He needs to continue to attend to his [impulsiveness] and contact with people in the drug culture," he said.
Mr Day handed down a nine-month intensive corrections order, including a requirement to abstain from drugs and undertake rehabilitation and complete 50 hours' community service, plus a $550 fine for the explosives devices.
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