Chiral Posted February 13, 2010 source A WARRNAMBOOL man charged with a string of offences after images of himself with stolen shotguns were found on his mobile telephone will have to do 100 hours of community work. Daniel Mark Foster, 30, of Churchill Street, appeared in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court on Monday and pleaded guilty to 11 offences. The charges included being a prohibited person possessing a firearm, possessing ammunition without a licence, being an unlicensed person storing ammunition in an insecure manner, cultivating cannabis, using a drug of dependence, obstructing police, two counts of handling stolen goods and three charges of possessing cannabis. He was convicted, placed on a 12-month community-based order to be assessed and treated as required and to perform 100 hours' work. He was also fined $500. The court heard that on September 7, 2008, five firearms and ammunition were stolen from a Dennington property. On September 28 last year a search found ammunition at a Churchill Street home. Images taken on September 11 the previous year, showing Foster with shotguns, were also found on a mobile phone. On that same date Foster and a co-defendant had been told about the guns and went to a Merrivale address, where they were offered the weapons for $2000 but they decided they were "hot", or stolen, and did not buy them. Foster was also caught by police in possession of cannabis and a mobile phone contained a photograph of three cannabis plants that he'd grown. Foster is a prohibited person to have firearms after previous court appearances in Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Defence counsel Andrew Tweedly said his client had been trying to overcome a cannabis addiction for the past four years and he was the sole parent of his eight-year-old son. Magistrate Jonathan Klestadt said Foster faced charges which had a starting point of a jail term and there was a great deal suspicious about some of his activities. He said it was obvious that Foster had been associating with people with the potential to get him into a lot more trouble. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
