A 36-year-old Collie man has been fined $1500 after pleading guilty to making a false police report.
Wade Alexander Maxwell appeared in the Collie Magistrates Court on Wednesday, September 12 where he pleaded guilty to one charge of creating false belief in relation to the incident in June.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Barry Phelps told the court Maxwell had reported to police that his vehicle had been stolen from his home address. The vehicle was later found burned out.
Sergeant Phelps said during the investigation, Maxwell admitted the vehicle hadn’t been stolen but that he had left it at Harris River Dam when it broke down and returned the next day to find it burned out.
Maxwell told the court he had ‘panicked and made a bad decision’ to report the vehicle stolen.
He said the vehicle wasn’t insured at the time of the incident.
Magistrate Brian Mahon said he was disappointed with the act as wasting the police’s time with ‘nonsense’ took them away from other serious matters they could be attending.