Australian thief caught with stolen safe hanging out of his car

The bungled theft of a Cairns community centre's safe that led to the robber being caught red-handed would make "a good movie", a District Court judge said. Police pulled over Matthew John Davis, 32, on June 24 last year after they saw the safe he stole from his former workplace hanging precariously out the back of his four-wheel-drive.

Davis was sentenced to a 12-month community corrections order after pleading guilty in Cairns District Court to breaking and entering. Crown prosecutor Steve Morris said Davis went to Home and Community Care on Hartley St at about 1am and tried to free the safe from the filing cabinet it was attached to with a hammer, but the safe refused to budge.



"That’s when this plan has turned sour for the defendant," Mr Morris said. "He had to wrestle with the filing cabinet to remove it." The safe, still attached to the filing cabinet, was hanging out of Davis’s vehicle when police pulled him over. "One would not have thought that was part of the initial plan," Mr Morris said.

Mr Morris said otherwise, Davis’s operation ran smoothly, with no fingerprints or DNA left at the scene. Defence solicitor Derek Kordick said it was a "very stupid idea" that "screams of being intercepted by police". Judge Philip Robin said the comedy of errors "would make a good movie". Davis was also ordered to pay $600 in compensation for damage to the safe.