Jaylen Boswell, 21, pleaded guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to two counts of burglary, theft, attempted theft, possessing a prohibited weapon and failing to answer bail.
Prosecutor Senior Constable Nathan Marsh told the court Boswell had been drinking at a Kialla motel when he rang the Royal Mail Hotel in Mooroopna at 1.30am on May 31 last year and asked the owner if he could sell him some alcohol.
When the owner told him no because they were closed, Boswell and two others went to the pub anyway.
At 3.30am the trio arrived at the pub, with one of the men kicking a bar door and shattering it and then Boswell using a knife to smash glass and let them into the pub.
The trio stole $500 cash and four slabs of Jack Daniels cans before leaving.
The following night, Boswell and one of the co-accused from the burglary the night before again broke into the same pub.
Sen Constable Marsh said Boswell had a large knife with him as he used a “small object” to smash a hole in the door before reaching inside through the broken glass and unlocking the door shortly before 2am.
Seeing what was happening from inside the pub, the owner called 000.
Once inside, the two men moved alcohol from the coolroom into the pub, but ran off empty-handed when police arrived shortly after, leaving behind the knife.
The two men’s fingerprints were found on the bottles of alcohol.
In a separate incident, police found Boswell walking in Packham St, Shepparton with a machete in his hand at 8pm on November 26 last year.
He told police he owned the machete for “self-defence”, Sen Constable Marsh said.
Boswell’s defence solicitor Luke Slater conceded the matters were serious, saying that the burglary was the most serious of the offences.
“He has some mental health problems and has a tendency to misuse alcohol and it was a theme (with the offences),” Mr Slater said.
He said Boswell had called police himself on November 26 when he was found with the machete because “he was having a mental breakdown”.
Mr Slater said Boswell had “a good work history”, having worked at a dry-cleaning business for five years, before taking up concreting this year.
However, he is currently unemployed.
Mr Slater asked for a community corrections order for his client, with the magistrate ordering him to be assessed for one.
The matter was adjourned to early September for sentence.
Meanwhile, Boswell was told he would be ordered to pay half the costs of the repairs to the doors at the pub, a total of $645.75.
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