A tracking device fitted to an Evo Energy work ute, stolen from outside a substation in Lyons, led police directly to a location on Black Mountain where the alleged thief and an accomplice were found trying to scratch the company's stickers off the vehicle.
The Ford Ranger ute was then allegedly driven at a police officer, who drew his firearm and directed the driver to stop. The driver ignored the direction and drove off along Clunies Ross Street toward O'Connor, veering onto the wrong side of the road and up onto the footpath, almost hitting a cyclist.
Dylan Bowler, 25, appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday charged with multiple offences, including stealing a car, obtaining property by deception, drive motor vehicle at police, and reckless driving.
The police statement of facts tendered to the court revealed how Bowler was caught on CCTV at the Lyons substation on December 15 after leaving another vehicle, a grey VW Golf, also recorded as stolen during a household burglary in late September
The alleged offender drove off in the work ute and that same day used the credit cards belonging to Evo Energy staff, which had been left in the vehicle, to buy cigarettes at two different locations, as CCTV commercial premises vision at Waramanga and Curtin later revealed.
However, the ute's electronic tracker led police directly to Black Mountain where, in their effort to flee apprehension, Bowler and his accomplice allegedly drove directly at the police officer, which Magistrate James Lawton identified as a most serious offence.
The stolen Ford Ranger was recovered the next day in Hackett.
Police investigations led them to attend a unit in Hawker, on an unrelated matter, on Friday at about 5am, where they found Bowler and arrested him.
Bail was opposed by the police prosecutor due to the likelihood of reoffending, even though a concreting contractor who attended the court offered to provide the alleged offender with employment and a surety to guarantee his court attendance.
Magistrate Lawton said given the strength of the prosecution's case, the alleged offender's previous criminal history and the brazen nature of the latest offences, one of them quite serious, he was "not satisfied Mr Bowler was a good candidate for bail".
Bowler spent New Year's Eve in the Alexander Maconochie Centre, and was remanded to reappear on January 28.
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