Jail for Oz drug-running onanist speed merchant

Cars, cannabis, guns, one off the wrist - an ill-advised mix

By Lester Haines, 9th January 2009

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The Australian man who was last year pulled for driving at 147km/h (91 mph) in a Holden SV6 packed with 5kg of cannabis, two dope plants, a couple of drug pipes and a loaded .22 rifle, and admitted to cops he'd filmed himself masturbating while driving at 150km/h has, unsurprisingly, been jailed.

Brendon Alan Erhardt, 39, was cuffed on 16 July on the Northern Territory's Stuart Highway roughly 500km (310 miles) south east of Darwin. He told police that he'd found the drugs at a rest stop 100km (62 miles) north of Coober Pedy, and intended to smoke the lot at home, that the rifle was for "shooting kangaroos from the vehicle whilst driving north" and that engaging in a five-knuckle shuffle at the wheel was not dangerous since the "only person he could hurt was himself".

In fact, he'd used an inheritance from his dead mother to buy the Holden and dope, and was last month sentenced to three years in prison with a non-parole period of 12 months after pleading guilty in the Northen Territories Supreme Court to "supplying a schedule two drug and possessing two cannabis plants".

That wasn't an end to the matter, however, and Erhardt earlier this week copped a concurrent sentence of two months for a further six charges including "carrying an unregistered and loaded firearm, driving dangerously and driving unlicensed".

Magistrate Sue Oliver told Darwin Magistrate's Court his behaviour was "strange and humiliating". She added: "The circumstances of the driving are bizarre to say the least. And I would have thought it would cause him some embarrassment to have it aired in a public forum."

The court also banned Erhardt from driving for six months and slapped him with a AU$2000 fine. ®

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