A career criminal was loaded on methamphetamine when police were forced to shoot him.
Daniel Charles Coad, 38, ought not have been on the streets at all.
The father of two, of Ararat in country Victoria, has spent most of his wretched life causing misery to others.
His list of prior offences goes on for pages.
Daniel Charles Coad, 38,
Police brought Coad’s reign of terror to an end in a hail of bullets. Their cars are pictured as they were when rammed by the menace
On Friday, he was handed yet another chance in a long list of chances by a County Court of Victoria judge.
Coad had pleaded guilty to a swag of nasty offences, including aggravated and recklessly causing risk to multiple police officers, handling stolen goods, theft, using drugs and a litany of driving offences.
Police had been on his tail for months at the end of 2019 after a series of car thefts in and about his hometown.
When a senior-constable caught up with him in January 2020, Coad wasn’t about to stop and chat.
The court heard Coad planted his foot and aimed the stolen car he was driving directly at the police car.
The cop took evasive action and Coad narrowly missed the stunned officer, who was forced to call off his pursuit.
Police spotted him again three days later as the desperate crook filled up the tank of the stolen car.
When police told him to stop what he was doing, Coad dropped the pump and took off in the car.
A sergeant had been clinging onto the driver’s side door as the maniac sped off.
When police caught up with him hours later, Coad took them on a high speed chase that again needed to be abandoned due to safety concerns.
Daniel Coad’s social media page reads like a tribute to crime, scum and villainy
Coad is no stranger to high speed pursuits.
In 2013 he was jailed what was then his 13th time after evading police seven times in less than a month.
Police would not catch up with him again until February 7, when an officer on patrol in Tullamarine, a stone’s throw from Melbourne airport, suspected he was up to no good.
Coad had been parked in the car park of a McDonald’s restaurant and appeared to be dealing drugs from a stolen vehicle.
The officer called in back-up and two police cars boxed Coad’s vehicle in on both sides in a V-shape.
Coad had been in the car with his girlfriend.
With guns drawn an officer yelled: ‘Police, get out of the car’.
Another officer saw Coad move his hand onto the gear stick.
‘Don’t do it,’ the officer shouted.
The meth-addled villain didn’t listen.
Daniel Coad started taking drugs as a teenager. They have now destroyed his life and seen him live a shocking life of crime
Daniel Coad, in what appears to be a shot captured from inside jail. He has spent much of his 38 years in and out of jail
Forensic analysis of the vehicle would later show Coad started the engine and put his foot flat to the floor.
As the stolen car rocketed forward into the police cars, one of the officers opened fire, putting four rounds into the car.
One of them struck Coad in the shoulder, passing directly through him into the driver’s seat.
His reign of terror was at an end.
One officer told the court of the anguish the incident had caused him and his colleagues.
The officer said the incident had brought one of them to tears and he now struggled to trust members of the public to comply with directions.
On Friday, the court heard Coad will likely be back on the streets in under six months.
Judge Jeanette Morrish sentenced Coad to four years and three months in jail, with a non-parole period of just two-and-a-half years.
He has already spent 756 days behind bars, meaning he will likely be free well before Christmas.
Judge Morrish said she had taken into account Coad’s early guilty plea, the hardship of life in jail due to Covid-19 restrictions and his expression of ‘true remorse’.
Coad had scribbled a letter of apology to the court and insisted his life would now be dedicated to the straight and narrow.
His Facebook page remains littered with posts promoting hate against police.
