A man has handed himself in to police about 25 years after shoplifting two video tapes and leaving the ACT while on bail.
On Thursday, Peter Justin Hackett told magistrate Jane Campbell he was addicted to heroin at the time of the thefts in 1999, and "the only thing I do now is a little bit of weed".
Hackett then made a gesture with his hand, holding it to his mouth as if having a toke.
"You're lucky you are now in the ACT and you can do that," Ms Campbell responded.
Hackett had pleaded guilty to two counts of minor theft, and single counts of giving police a false name or address, and failing to appear after giving a bail undertaking.
In 1999 Hackett stole a video tape of The Crow, worth $29 at the time, from David Jones.
On Thursday, about 25 years later, Ms Campbell said: "It may be worth more now, who knows."
The Crow was released in 1994 and tells the fictional story of a man and his fiancee who were brutally murdered.
When the man mysteriously returns from the dead with the help of a crow, it begins to guide him to his killers.
Hackett also stole a $69 video collection from a now defunct Grace Brothers department store.
He was on a good behaviour order, and a periodic detention order at the time.
In the ACT Magistrates Court last week, he was sentenced to the somewhat uncommon rising of the court, imprisonment for time already served, and fined $100.
Hackett, 52, had spent two days in custody for the thefts, one in 1999 and the other in September 2023.
A bail surety of $1000 had also been forfeited in 2001 after he failed to return to court.
On Thursday, Legal Aid lawyer Stephanie Corish said her client had left the ACT after being "run out of town" and moved to Sydney.
In September 2023 he returned to the capital and went to a police station, saying there might be some warrants out for his arrest.
"[Hackett's] motivation for theft was drug use at the time, he has very clearly taken responsibilities for the theft," Ms Corish told the court.
Ms Corish said there had been "a significant passage of time" since the thefts and Hackett had "moved away very clearly" from heroin addiction.
The lawyer argued Hackett now and the man he was 25 years ago were "effectively two different people".
"He has moved on from that life and he's learned his lessons," she said.
Ms Campbell said the shoplifting was "quite laughable because we no longer have videos".
She stated the thefts had been carried out by a man aged in his 20s, who was now 52.
Ms Campbell said in the intervening two-and-a-half decades, Hackett had moved to NSW and then served terms of imprisonment for other crimes while in the state.
"[In a] demonstration that Mr Hackett has in fact been rehabilitated, he stands before me a very different man to what he was standing here in 1999," the magistrate stated.
Ms Campbell said the thief blamed his history of abusing multiple illicit substances, and heroin "was the main drug of his choice".
