Roger McMillan has a holiday shack in Southport which he has owned for 20 years.

Over the last three years Roger noticed a considerable amount of firewood was disappearing from his car port so he installed security cameras which he has been monitoring daily.

In January this year he captured images of a person he believes was the culprit. The offender was caught on camera stealing firewood from his property.

“I also captured images on video the same person trying to gain access to my key safe in order to get the keys which would allow entry into my shack,” said McMillan.

The security footage clearly shows the culprit randomly trying different passwords over a full 60 seconds, and finally giving up.

“I had no idea what this person intended to do, or to perhaps steal, once inside,” he said.

Armed with his high resolution security camera footage, McMillan contacted the local Dover police and Constable Jordan MacDonald promptly attended, took down his statement and reviewed the footage.

Having identified the person on the video the Police officer then interviewed the suspect.

“The culprit admitted the offences and the Police officer advised me that this person would be charged with stealing, attempted burglary and trespassing,” said McMillan.

McMillan waited several weeks, then tried to contact Constable Jordan MacDonald several times, without any luck, even after leaving voice and text messages.

“I managed to speak to him about four weeks ago and he advised me that the prosecutions section had decided not to follow through with the charges. There was to be no prosecution at all,” advised MacDonald.

“I found this to be quite alarming as it was an open and shut case with the offender admitting guilt,” said McMillan.

“Not a single person with the Tasmania Police had the decency to contact me with their decision,” he said and “that just made matters worse.”

McMillan then sent a formal email complaint to the Chief Commissioner, which was acknowledged with the advice being that his complaint would be investigated.

He waited another three weeks and then sent a follow up email, asking someone to get in touch with an update on the matter.

On 12 May 2025 and on 14 May 2025 McMillan received calls from Inspector Brenda Orr of the Southern Prosecutions section.

Inspector Orr advised McMillan that acting on the Director Public Prosecution (DPP) guidelines, she considered that the matter would not be worth prosecuting for the following two reasons:

  • The offender was over 70 with no known police record, and
  • The value of the firewood in the video was only about $10.00 [even though there was a lot more that had gone missing over a long period of time]

When McMillan asked her why she was not going ahead with the other charges of attempted burglary and trespassing, she did not offer any reason.

“How is this offender going to get a police record if she doesn’t get charged and convicted in a court of law?” he now wonders.

McMillan made contact with Tasmanian Times and requested us to tell this story as a matter of principle.

“If I am over 70 with no police record, can I feel free to go into any store or break into any premises and steal property up to the value of $10, and not be liable for prosecution?” he said.

“I find this to be incredible. What has become of the law of the land … have things gone this bad in Australia? Have we as a society become so apathetic that we don’t care anymore?

“The job of the Police is to protect life and property, but it appears only if the DPP feels like it these days, and why do we bother installing expensive security camera systems?

“It is an indictment on society that it has come to this and I feel that the general public need to know that it’s OK to steal from others,” said McMillan.

Roger McMillan has since asked Inspector Brenda Orr for her reasons to be put in writing for not prosecuting the offender in this matter, however, much to his disappointment he has so far heard nothing further.

Tasmanian Times contacted Police Media for their comment and we have not received any response.

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