A North Albury man has been warned he'll be jailed for firearms, stolen property and fireworks offences if he once again fails to get a sentencing report done.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Shannon James Quilty was contacted repeatedly by NSW Community Corrections for the assessment report, but didn't respond.
Albury court registrar Wendy Howard has warned the 45-year-old that he won't get another chance.
If you don't get it done, she told him, "there is a high likelihood you'll be looking at a jail sentence".
Defence lawyer Louise Dart submitted that there was a degree of uncertainty from Quilty as to what exactly he had to do and when.
But this was rejected by Ms Howard, who indicated Quilty clearly had simply failed to engage.
Ms Howard said Community Corrections had attempted to phone him, attempted to write to him and had attended his home.
"And he still did not get the sentence assessment report done," she said.
Quilty previously pleaded guilty to two counts of receiving stolen property, possessing an unauthorised prohibited firearm, not keep a prohibited firearm safely, possess ammunition without authority, handling explosives or pyrotechnics without a licence and a second offence of driving while disqualified.
The court was told, in a police outline of the case to which Quilty made his admissions, that the victim of the stolen property offences was Milsearch - a Wollongong-based company specialising in unexploded ordnance.
Milsearch had been contracted to remove metal and unexploded material from a former ammunition depot in Central Reserve Road, Ettamogah.
On June 9 about 3.30am, "unknown offenders" went to the site and covered a CCTV camera.
They then forced open a shipping container by cutting a padlock, entering it and stealing four metal detectors. This was reported to police.
Quilty posted an advertisement on the Gumtree website on July 27 for a metal detector, asking $2000 for what had an estimated second-hand value of $8000.
Police armed with a search warrant went to his Mate Street home on August 3 about 9.20pm.
Inside a back shed they recovered the metal detector, which had a serial number matching one of those stolen at Ettamogah, plus the empty case of another detector.
They then found a black, hard plastic imitation shotgun, with a metal trigger, a pistol grip in place of the stock and with a shortened barrel of about 20 centimetres.
The length of the barrel, police said, was what made the weapon prohibited. Quilty had never held a firearms licence in NSW or elsewhere in Australia.
Also recovered were a Winchester 270 round, a Winchester .22 gauge round and three fireworks labelled Greatwall Fireworks Killer, Brothers Pyrotechnics Boosted and Brothers Pyrotechnics Red Devil.
Again, Quilty had never held a pyrotechnics or fireworks licence.
Asked about the metal detector, Quilty told police he had done an internet search to buy one and came across one for sale for $400.
"I did get suspicious, yeah, I researched it and it seemed to be a pretty expensive thing."
Quilty said he had got the fireworks about 15 years earlier from a man who had turned up at a place he used to work.
He was "selling them out of the back of the van, and I bought a few".
Quilty will be sentenced on January 31.