By Luke Voogt
Geelong police are hunting 15 remaining offenders after releasing 20 images of wanted court-dodgers in a two-week, name-and-shame campaign.
One offender handed himself in and police found and arrested three others with information from the community, Geelong Acting Superintendent Geoff Colsell said.
Another, wanted for theft and drug-related offences, was one of two men who died in a crash at Norlane on Sunday night.
Grant Rankin, 46, was driving a Commodore when a Ford Territory ran a red light and hit his vehicle at the intersection of the Princes Highway and St Georges Road about 11:50pm.
Mr Rankin’s sedan was travelling west on St Georges Road, indicating the driver’s side of the car bore the brunt of the impact.
The 30-year-old driver of the Territory also died at the scene.
Paramedics took the Territory driver’s 37-year-old male passenger to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Mr Rankin failed to appear on bail at the Geelong Magistrates’ Court on 31 March 2017 for offences including possessing amphetamine and motor vehicle theft.
He was one of 10 faces in last week’s Indy story on a police campaign to identify people wanted on warrants for arrest.
In 2015 he was charged with making explosives and drug offences after police searched his home at Whittington.
Crime Stoppers released the images of another 10 offenders the week before.
Police this week continued their search for Steven Jeffers, Geoffrey Chapman, Michael Strinovic, Naomi Thorpe, James Ferrari, Jason Hamilton, Rodney Gray, Matthew Moroney, Tyler Graham, Travis Stahl, Jovo Lobozinski, Mark Dagg, Jeremy Portelli, Darren Gregory and Caidie Naylor.
The two-week call-out resulted in a 70 per cent increase in intelligence reports, Crime Stoppers’ Cathy Rhodes said.
“The support from the public and media has been tremendous and this campaign couldn’t have been so successful without the community really getting behind it.”
Police urged anyone who witnessed the Sunday night crash or had information on the remaining offenders to phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or to visit crimestoppersvic.com.au.
