Brendan Helmore pleads guilty to lighting fires at Ulupna island
Don't miss out on the headlines from Goulburn Valley. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A Bendigo miner lit more than 30 fires at a popular camping site near Tocumwal on the state's northern border after entering a 'psychotic state', believing he was dying of dehydration and stripping off his clothes.
Brendan Helmore, 45, pleaded guilty in Shepparton County Court on Wednesday to intentionally causing a bushfire and possessing methylamphetamine.
On the Easter weekend of 2024, Helmore was camping at Ulupna island, along with about 2000 others.
He was on personal leave from his job at a West Australian-based mining company, where he worked as an underground operator at the time.
After consuming methylamphetamine the night before, Helmore went for a walk on March 30 in the bush near his campsite when he started to become distressed and delusional.
The court heard he believed he was dehydrated to the point he was going to die and panicked when he could not find any water.
He stripped his jumper and shirt off wearing only his jeans.
Helmore saw an aircraft flying above him and in an attempt to be rescued he began setting fires with a black lighter.
Witnesses saw one of the fires and attempted to put it out before seeing more and calling emergency services.
It took four hours for the fires to be brought under control by the CFA, and a further seven days for the area to be deemed safe.
Helmore was arrested at the campsite and interviewed where he admitted to lighting at least three fires, however he denied he was in the fire area that has been reported.
The court heard he told police he did not try to put any of the fires out and kept lighting them because the first one didn't work in getting attention.
Helmore was in prison from his arrest to November 20 last year when he was granted bail.
The court heard he experienced a 'very uncomfortable' time in custody.
Defence lawyer Alex McLennan said Helmore accepted the seriousness of the offences and with his plea of guilty had accepted responsibility.
He said Helmore had good prospects for rehabilitation and had not experienced any relapses in his mental health, but would be best supported by continued treatment.
He will be sentenced on June 5 and assessed for a community corrections order.
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Many of them are waiting to be repatriated in holding centres where access to food and medicine is said to be scarce. The Immanuel Foundation has rescued more than 2700 people since 2020. "We bring them to hospital for a health check and then take them to talk to law enforcement," Jinnmonca said, as his phone vibrated for a third time in just 30 minutes. The call was from one of his 12 staff members reporting that the team succeeded in extracting a Thai woman from a scam centre in Cambodia. She was covered in scars from beatings but otherwise healthy, the team said. Escaped workers say they were given little food or clean water and threatened with beatings or death if quotas were unmet. For Palit, 42, a former clothing shop owner from northern Thailand, the risk of electric shock was never far away during his six-month detention. He had been attracted to the promise of a high-paying administrative job in South Korea, but instead was flown to Mandalay in Myanmar. Fearing he was being trafficked for his organs, it was a relief to know he could keep them, he said. Instead, he was forced to spend his time creating fake profiles to engage a minimum of five people every day in online relationships. "I would talk to the target like 'Baby please invest in this, you will get good profit,'" said Palit, who wanted only his first name disclosed. Well known among forced labourers, Jinnmonca's personal Facebook pings with messages, typically four new people each day, begging for help and sharing stories like Palit's. The cross-border nature of trafficking rescue makes the repatriation process difficult and slow, said Amy Miller, regional director for Southeast Asia at Acts of Mercy International, which supports survivors. "They are complaining about the wait time," she said. "There are people who are sick that are maybe not getting treatment. "It's just a tinder box ready to go up in flames." 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"They want to go back home," he said, and if they do not follow orders, the gang leaders will abuse them until they die. "Some, when they cannot escape, they jump off the seventh or 10th floor. They want to die." Criminal gangs cashed in on pandemic-induced economic vulnerability and even now, workers come from as far as Ethiopia and India, duped into thinking a paid-for journey to Thailand will yield a worthwhile employment opportunity. Instead they spend their days tethered to technology, generating fake social media profiles and compelling stories to swindle money from unsuspecting people, contributing to a cyber-crime economy that accounted for $US8 ($A12) trillion in losses in 2023. In February, under pressure from China after a well-known Chinese actor, Wang Xing, was trafficked, Myanmar authorities and the Thai government collaborated in the biggest rescue operation yet. By shutting down the internet and stopping fuel supplies and electricity in Myawaddy, Myanmar, authorities were able to debilitate several compounds, leading to the release of more than 7,000 workers. Their ordeal, however, is not yet over. Many of them are waiting to be repatriated in holding centres where access to food and medicine is said to be scarce. The Immanuel Foundation has rescued more than 2700 people since 2020. "We bring them to hospital for a health check and then take them to talk to law enforcement," Jinnmonca said, as his phone vibrated for a third time in just 30 minutes. The call was from one of his 12 staff members reporting that the team succeeded in extracting a Thai woman from a scam centre in Cambodia. She was covered in scars from beatings but otherwise healthy, the team said. Escaped workers say they were given little food or clean water and threatened with beatings or death if quotas were unmet. For Palit, 42, a former clothing shop owner from northern Thailand, the risk of electric shock was never far away during his six-month detention. He had been attracted to the promise of a high-paying administrative job in South Korea, but instead was flown to Mandalay in Myanmar. Fearing he was being trafficked for his organs, it was a relief to know he could keep them, he said. Instead, he was forced to spend his time creating fake profiles to engage a minimum of five people every day in online relationships. "I would talk to the target like 'Baby please invest in this, you will get good profit,'" said Palit, who wanted only his first name disclosed. Well known among forced labourers, Jinnmonca's personal Facebook pings with messages, typically four new people each day, begging for help and sharing stories like Palit's. 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When Palit, who is soft-spoken and quick to smile, was released from a scam centre in November 2023 alongside 328 other people, 10 of them were arrested. They were accused of being complicit in cybercrime and kidnapping because their language skills gave them leadership roles in the compound's living quarters. But they were victims as well, said Jinnmonca, and such arrests mean workers rescued from the clutches of criminal gangs in one country may face prison in another.
