Arden Motel targeted as part of “Wanton attacks” crime spree

A 30-year-old woman has been sentenced to eight years and three months’ jail after pleading guilty to charges relating to a methamphetamine-fuelled crime spree that included the theft of an EFTPOS machine from a North Melbourne business last year.

On January 6, 2024 unemployed forklift driver Darcy Johnston entered the Arden Motel on Arden St with a co-offender, and while a staff member was distracted, stole the business’s EFTPOS payment unit.

The theft was one of a series of “wanton attacks on local business”, County Court judge Michael McInerney said in sentencing Johnston on August 19.

The machine, which the court heard could be used for financial advantage by “reversing credits”, was one of two she stole, with another business robbed after its front window was smashed with a hammer.

On August 4, 2024 Johnston and a co-accused used a crowbar to force the door of the Skinmetrics Clinic in Moonee Ponds and drove off in a white Porsche Macan which had been stolen the day before, taking $2500 worth of products and equipment.

Two-and-a-half weeks later, in the early hours of August 22, Johnston and a person police believed was her partner climbed through the open window of a house at Heidelberg Heights in the early hours of the morning and took the keys for, then drove away with, a white Mazda and a Toyota Corolla while the owners slept.

After members of the public saw the women changing number plates and called triple zero, the cars were put under observation by police, who tried unsuccessfully to stop them in Preston with tyre deflation devices.

In an unfolding episode of what the judge described as “drug-induced outrageous behaviour”, an officer pursuing Johnston, who was driving the Mazda, was then rammed from behind by the Corolla.

The police airwing started tracking the cars, with Johnston observed driving at high speeds and endangering other vehicles in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.
In aerial footage Johnston's partner can be seen abandoning the Toyota in the carpark of Campbellfield Plaza, and getting into the Mazda.

A moment later, a police van appears, bumping into the front of the Mazda to stop it, with three officers descending on the car and wrenching its doors open.

However, Johnston, reversing quickly, sends the officers scrambling, and clipping a car behind her, takes off again.

The police chase that ensued saw Johnston, pursued by multiple police vehicles, drive through stopped traffic at intersections, hit a car and truck in Sydney Rd, cross onto the wrong side of the road and drive over multiple roundabouts before finally crashing into a tree at Epping Plaza.

The court heard the 30-year-old, who had been using two grams of meth a day at the time of the offending and refused a drug test when arrested, had a record of drug-related convictions going back 10 years.

However, she had “diligently sought to rid herself of drugs” while in jail and had demonstrated some remorse.
She will be eligible for parole in six-and-a-half years.