One of the men convicted of a series of burglaries involving automatic teller machine ram-raids across Lake Bolac and western Victoria has been ordered to pay over $300,000 in compensation to the banks affected.
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Grant James Nalder was 35 at the time of the his sentencing for the thefts in 2020.
Nalder and co-accused Martin John Locandro and Robert Stanley Fitzpatrick were alleged to have committed ten aggravated burglaries across Victoria, including Clunes, Lake Bolac, Beaufort, Creswick, Skipton, Dunkeld, Ballan and Queenscliff.
The men used stolen vehicles to smash through shopfronts to access the ATMs, and in Clunes destroyed an historic shopfront using a front-end loader stolen from a Creswick quarry, which the pair left in the town's main street.
They used angle grinders and pinch bars to break open or attempt to break open the machines, stealing a total of $320,700 from a safe at Avoca Racecourse and Bendigo Bank ATMs at Beaufort and Lake Bolac.
They were unable to access the cash within the Clunes ATM.
Nalder and Locandro received prison sentences for three of of the burglaries in September 2020.
Nalder was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment with a minimum of four years and 10 months before being eligible for parole, while Locandro was sentenced to three years and nine months' imprisonment with a non-parole period of two years and four months.
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In the County Court on June 20, His Honour Judge John Carmody ordered Nalder to pay a total of $313,680 to the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank for cash taken from the Beaufort and Lake Bolac ATMs and insurance excesses paid for damage to the Beaufort, Lake Bolac and Clunes ATMs, under the provisions of section 86 of the Sentencing Act 1991.
Nalder appeared at the hearing by audio-visual link from Beechworth Correctional Centre.
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