A new father caught allegedly attempting to fly a drone into a Canberra prison to drop drugs and contraband has been granted bail to care for his newborn son.<\/p>\n
Tyler Keppie, 22, faced the ACT Magistrates Court on September 29, supported by his partner and their two-week-old son, after he was arrested near the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) the day before.<\/p>\n
Special Magistrate Sean Richter told Mr Keppie it was a stupid decision to go to the prison that day instead of staying at home with his family.<\/p>\n
“He’s about to realise the seriousness of the situation he’s in,” Special Magistrate Richter said.<\/p>\n
“He’s now a father\u2026 it’s no longer fun and games.”<\/p>\n
The drone found by police near the Alexander Maconochie Centre\u00a0correctional facility. (Supplied: ACT Policing)<\/p>\n
Drone and drugs seized<\/p>\n
Police were called to the AMC after staff allegedly saw Mr Keppie using a drone outside the jail’s fence in Hume on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Police said they chased Mr Keppie who fled along Monaro Highway before they arrested him. They found a drone controller, drone blades and duct tape in his backpack.<\/p>\n
They later found a drone \u2014 paired with the controller in Mr Keppie’s backpack \u2014 near the prison’s perimeter.<\/p>\n
Drugs, a smart watch, a SIM card and nicotine patches were found inside a drink container attached to the drone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some of the items the ACT Police found attached to the drone. (Supplied: ACT Policing)<\/p>\n
More drugs, nicotine patches and USB memory sticks were also found in another container nearby.<\/p>\n
The court heard there was 1.9 grams of MDMA and four grams of crystal methamphetamine.<\/p>\n
Mr Keppie was charged with two counts of taking prohibited items into a correctional facility, two counts of possessing a prohibited substance and possessing a knife without a reasonable excuse.<\/p>\n
Granted bail because of two-week-old son<\/p>\n
While giving evidence, Mr Keppie’s 21-year-old partner told the court Mr Keppie was the “sole supporter” of the family and that he cared for the child in the evenings.<\/p>\n
The defence argued Mr Keppie should be granted bail because his role as carer to a newborn amounted to special and exceptional circumstances.<\/p>\n
But the prosecution argued not being able to provide care to family is almost always an inherent feature of incarceration, and therefore Mr Keppie’s circumstances are not exceptional.<\/p>\n
Addressing Mr Keppie, Special Magistrate Richter told him the decision “could have gone either way” but that he would grant bail because of how young Mr Keppie’s only child was.<\/p>\n
“The next 18 years is going to be hard work, and I think he now realises that,” Special Magistrate Richter said.<\/p>\n
“You have a small child, make the most of this \u2026 you only get one shot at this \u2026 you better give it your best shot.”<\/p>\n
The matter will return to court on October 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new father caught allegedly attempting to fly a drone into a Canberra prison to drop drugs and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2666,114632,114633,64,63,18994,2667,102586,55020,1730,2732,114634,44,101115],"class_list":["post-177003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-act","tag-act-magistrates-court","tag-alexander-maconochie-centre","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baby","tag-canberra","tag-deliver","tag-drone","tag-drugs","tag-jail","tag-new-born-son","tag-news","tag-prisoners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}