Serial crook Matthew James Massey’s fate is once again in the hands of parole authorities after he pleaded guilty to possessing stolen property this morning.
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But the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions agreed to drop another charge against the 36-year-old, an allegation of going equipped for theft.
The convicted armed robber and notorious prison hard-man was on parole for kidnapping and unlawful confinement in March this year.
He came to the attention of police when a member of the public spotted him moving a red Yamaha motorcycle around outside the O’Connor shops.
Police spoke to Massey, who said the bike belonged to a friend.
But a check of police records revealed the motorbike had been stolen from a secure garage in Lyneham the previous day.
Massey was also caught in possession of a bag of identification cards belonging to other people.
He has since spent about 121 days locked up on remand on these charges, with the exception of a few hours when he was on bail in May.
The fitness instructor was taken back into custody the evening he was released after breaching the conditions of his bail.
This morning Magistrate Peter Morrison, with the agreement of the parties, sentenced Massey to time served.
But he also noted Massey’s parole was automatically cancelled as a consequence of the convictions.
In October last year the Supreme Court’s Justice John Burns jailed Massey for four years and two months on the kidnapping and unlawful confinement charges.
The sentence, with a non-parole period of two years, was backdated to 2009 to take into account time served and came at the end of a lengthy jury trial.
At the sentencing proceedings Massey vowed to turn his life around and focus on his family.
Massey has spent most of his adult life behind bars and notched up almost 50 convictions ranging from robbery and escaping custody to assaults and drug crimes.
Massey was locked up for five years over a spate of armed robberies in 1994, and despite vowing to live a ''pro-social life'' upon his release again committed a number of armed robberies, for which he spent almost seven years behind bars.
According to a pre-sentence report, Massey developed a reputation for being ''a tough guy, a hard man,'' who demanded respect from prisoners and guards.
As a consequence of today’s hearing Massey has been ordered to serve the remainder of the kidnapping sentence, expiring in November 2014.
But he will be able to make a bid for parole as early as tomorrow.
Whether he is successful will be a matter for the Sentence Administration Board.
