A serial underwear thief who engaged in a lewd act beneath the clothesline of one in every of his many victims has had his bid to get out of jail quashed.
Reservoir man Joshua Murrell, 34, confronted Heidleberg Magistrates Court in Melbourne through videolink on Monday, charged with 39 offences together with stalking, thefts, possession of an imitation firearm and trespassing.
Police discovered an Aladdin’s cave of girls’s underwear, bras and gymnasium put on once they tried to arrest Murrell in June final 12 months.
Murrell stole from garments traces in Reservoir, Preston and Heidelberg West between 2016 and his arrest, typically revisiting properties.
Four of his victims had their statements learn to courtroom, all spoke of the concern and anxiousness Murrell’s actions had induced them.
“I am now extremely paranoid when it comes to all males,” one sufferer mentioned.
One sufferer discovered him masturbating beneath her clothesline, which she mentioned compelled her to maneuver out of the home.
Another mentioned he had lower a flywire display and tried to push in her laundry window to realize entry to her clothes when she stopped hanging it exterior.
During his arrest, Murrell advised police, “I’m disgusted, there is no excuse” and that there was “nothing fearful, it wasn’t personal” when talking of his victims.
Murrell’s lawyer Cameron Baker mentioned his consumer had pleaded responsible to the fees and had spent virtually six months in custody.
He known as for his consumer to be launched and be sentenced to a neighborhood corrections order.
Baker mentioned his consumer suffered from melancholy, submit traumatic stress dysfunction and transvestic dysfunction, which in flip led to his drug use.
That drug use led to impulsive behaviour which led to his offending, he mentioned.
Because of his transvestic dysfunction – changing into intensely sexually aroused from sporting ladies’s clothes – he was “not a risk to the sexual safety of the community”.
Magistrate Meagan Keogh raised issues that Murrell had “many underlying issues” and releasing him on a neighborhood corrections order would imply he would face delays to getting the assistance he wanted, which meant he was at larger danger of reoffending.
She mentioned she would moderately he stay in custody whereas ready for an evaluation for an issue behavioural program.
“This has been a longstanding issue and needs a variety of treatments put in place… it’s the only way that we are going to mitigate the risk he poses generally,” Keogh mentioned.
It may take as much as eight weeks earlier than he could possibly be assessed, the courtroom heard.
Murrell, sporting a shaved head and lengthy rats tail tied in a bun, saved his head down and didn’t communicate in the course of the listening to.
He will stay in custody till the matter returns to courtroom on April 5 for sentencing.
