Teenager sent to youth detention after stealing motorbike

Monday 24 May 2021

An 18-year-old has been sent to youth detention after stealing a motorbike and being found with cannabis and diazepam.

Lewis Topley was arrested on 17 February this year, three days after his 18th birthday.

Topley was seen by Amherst School staff pushing a motorbike near the gates at 07:15. Due to him having no reason to be there, as the school was closed, he was asked to move on, and a staff member decided to take a picture of him.

Around the same time, a motorcycle was reported stolen from a nearby property.

Pictured: Topley was sentenced in the Magistrate’s Court.

Police Officers found and arrested Topley a short distance away, on Maurepas Road. A search of the area revealed the motorbike hidden in some bushes.

He was searched and officers found 4 grams of cannabis and 15 diazepam tablets on him.

During his defence, Advocate Chris Green said Topley was determined to remain drug free in the future and is looking for work. He argued that Topley hadn’t experienced the benefit of a probation order or community service yet, and proposed this was how Judge Graeme McKerrell should deal with the offence.

Despite this, Judge McKerrell remained sceptical that Topley had any intention to remain drug free.

“The question is, what could possibly persuade me that things are different,” he said. “The answer is nothing.”

Withe a previous conviction to his name, Topley was sentenced to another three months youth detention for stealing the motorbike and one month for each charge of drug possession.

The drug sentences are to run concurrently to each other, but consecutively to the conviction for stealing, totalling four months youth detention.