Jason Bennett, 51, of Shepparton pleaded guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to two counts of drug driving and one of using a mobile phone while driving.
The court heard Bennett was stopped by police after they spotted him talking on his phone while driving on Corio St, Shepparton, on September 17 last year.
Police followed him to Regent St, where they pulled him over and drug tested him.
He tested positive to methamphetamines and cannabis.
When he was interviewed by police, he admitted to using half a point of ice the night before and using his phone while driving.
Prosecutor Rachel Elliot said Bennett told police he was driving because he was “trying to get things organised to go to Mum’s”, and that he had been talking on the phone “to tee up someone to clean Mum’s house”.
The court heard that Bennett was again picked up drug driving on October 26 last year on Welsford St, Shepparton.
Again, he tested positive to cannabis and methamphetamines.
Ms Elliot said when he was interviewed by police, he told them that he was “prescribed medical cannabis” but could not provide a prescription.
He also told them he had taken half a gram of methamphetamines, and his reason for driving was that he was “coming home from a funeral and not thinking right”, Ms Elliot said.
Bennett’s defence solicitor Damian Russo said there had been a “gap in his priors” between 2011 and 2020 when he had lived a “stable life”.
However, he admitted Bennett’s driving record between 2020 and 2025 was “problematic”.
He said his client had split from his partner and in 2019 and things had “taken a turn for the worst”.
Mr Russo said Bennett’s mother had died just before the September 2025 offending, and police had given him a two-hour window to pick up belongings from his mother’s house in October.
He also told the court Bennett had cancer.
Bennett was fined $2000 and his licence was cancelled for 12 months from November 13 last year when police had given him a disqualification notice.
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