The father of a Berwick serial hoon has successfully beaten a police bid to confiscate a BMW vehicle used for dangerous acts such as seat-swapping while driving on Monash Freeway.
Dandenong magistrate Julian Ayres found on 21 October that there was no dispute that the car was “tainted property” under the state’s confiscation laws.
However, taking away the 2020 BMW – which was bought for $73,000 by the offender’s parents’ company PHSS Pty Ltd – would cause undue hardship to the father.
The son Subhanu Mittal, 20, had this year pleaded guilty to 15 charges including reckless conduct endangering life, driving with a suspended licence, dangerously losing traction and being a P-plater driving a prohibited vehicle in January-April 2023.
Mittal had used the BMW for at least three of the reckless conduct endangering life charges, Ayres said.
Ayres found that the offending son was not the legal owner of the BMW, though he had bought the car’s $17,000 number plates as an “investment”.
The BMW was bought with a $60,000 loan in 2021, with the father making $760 monthly repayments.
The father would be immediately liable for the remaining $46,000 debt if the car was forfeited to Victoria Police, Ayres said.
He had several business interests that seemed to be largely funded by credit and had no significant cash flow or regular income, the court heard.
Further, there was no evidence that the father had prior knowledge of his son’s illegal driving in the BMW until police raided their home in April 2023, Ayres said.
There had been no further offending in the BMW until it was seized by police eight months later.
Ayres ruled that a forfeiture order would cause “undue economic hardship” and therefore a “disproportionate sanction” on the father as an “innocent but interested third party”.
The family company PHSS that owned the BMW had four directors – co-offending twin brothers Subhanu and Sushant Mittal, and their father and mother.
Subhanu and Sushant Mittal are not shareholders in the company.
The Chief Commissioner of Police will be ordered to pay the father’s legal costs, Ayres ruled. He added he had “no criticism“ against the police’s “very fair and appropriate“ application.
In July, Subhanu Mittal was convicted by Ayres, fined $4000, disqualified from driving for two years and put on a two-year community corrections order.
The CCO includes supervision, mental health treatment and a likely road-trauma awareness course.
Police had detailed Mittal’s 360-degree burnouts, fishtailing, 200-km/h drag racing on Monash Freeway as well as seat-swapping at high speeds on the freeway, in Domain Tunnel and on Princes Highway, Hallam over four months in 2023.
During the seat swaps, the high-powered BMW was left on cruise control and lane-assist while without a driver for up to 17 seconds. One of them was performed on the Monash on a Saturday afternoon with an L-plate passenger.
This month, Mittal’s twin brother Sushant Mittal pleaded guilty to charges including reckless conduct endangering life for similar offending.
The Mercedes AMG sports car used by Sushant is also subject to a confiscation bid by Victoria Police.
