A woman with an extensive criminal history that has not "let up" since her young teenage years has been refused bail after committing a series of offences, including being involved in a head-on crash that left another driver telling police: "I don't know, they ran off".
Tayla Louise Ceeney appeared via audio-visual link in the ACT Magistrates Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to six charges relating to driving, burglary, and stolen property offences.
Ceeney pleaded not guilty to one count of riding in a vehicle without consent.
Statements of facts read that in April 2021, Ceeney and a man were arrested after they were in a stolen Mazda CX-5 that collided head-on with a Hyundai Santa Fe on the Monaro Highway.
At the scene, the driver of the Hyundai told police "I don't know, they ran off" after being asked where the occupants of the Mazda were.
Two witnesses told police they saw the Mazda travelling south in the northbound lane "at a high speed" at the time of the collision.
Other police officers then saw Ceeney and the man, injured, about 500m from the collision.
The pair was taken to The Canberra Hospital before blood tests returned positive results for methylamphetamine.
The collision happened after police tried to stop the Mazda in Amaroo.
In July of 2021, Ceeney was allegedly a passenger in another stolen vehicle, which was left idling in a driveway, that police pursued across Canberra.
Thirteen months later while on bail, security cameras captured Ceeney as being the driver of a stolen Great Wall ute in Greenway.
There, she and a passenger were also captured trying to open a number of vehicles and storage cages.
When police attended a residence and arrested Ceeney, they also found a number of vehicle keys, wallets, and cards.
In court during her bail application, Ceeney's lawyer, Kat Duffy, said her client had taken a wrong turn in life, experienced homelessness, and fell into a cycle of substance abuse.
Ms Duffy said there had been attempts to arrange accommodation for Ceeney with an original application lodged with the Justice Housing Program.
The court heard a rehabilitation centre provided a letter offering Ceeney a placement.
"She's incentivised not only to engage with stable accommodation support, but she's doing so with the incentives of bail conditions," Ms Duffy said.
The defence lawyer said Ceeney had also spent 171 days in pre-sentence custody that included being "detached from her antisocial peers" and abstaining from illicit substances.
Prosecutor Julia Churchill opposed bail based on the likelihood of Ceeney being charged from further alleged offending and failing to answer bail conditions.
Ms Churchill said a concern was the rehabilitation placement not having supervision and that some of the proposed bail conditions "are somewhat further laxed".
She said Ceeney was on NSW parole at the time of the offending last August and told the court about an arrest warrant being issued in 2022.
"It's therefore my submission that the defendant hasn't complied with community-based orders and/or bail conditions," she said.
Chief magistrate Lorraine Walker acknowledged the offer by the rehabilitation centre and the "certificates of the extensive number of courses" related to substance abuse and employment the defendant had completed while in custody.
However, Ms Walker said the question was whether bail conditions could address the likelihood of Ceeney being charged from further alleged offending.
"Only 25 years of age and yet she has a very concerning and extensive criminal history," she said.
Ms Walker said Ceeney's history dated back to when she was a young teenager and that "there has been no let up since that time".
She said while she accepted Ceeney's "may well be motivated to change her trajectory", she was not prepared to grant bail because of the defendant's risks to the community and the uncertainty about her compliance.
Ceeney was denied bail and the case is set for return on March 16.
