Burglars have been caught red-handed trying to rip copper wiring from the floor of a heritage-listed naval station building.
The four men, who triggered security motion detectors and live CCTV in the process, were revving a ute and "honking the horn" before police confronted them at the Belconnen Naval Transmitting Station.
On Thursday, two of those burglars, James Gary Taylor and Wayne Robert Blundell, faced the ACT Magistrates Court to be committed to a higher court for sentencing.
The pair each pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary in company and damaging Commonwealth property by joint commission.
The ACT station, established in 1939, was integral to naval communications during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and played a significant role in defending the Australian mainland.
The Commonwealth heritage-listed site in Lawson is owned by Defence Housing Australia and the station was decommissioned in 2005.
The burglary
About 4.10am on May 5, a ute containing Taylor, Blundell and two other men drove into the site through a hole in a surrounding tall fence topped with barbed wire.
According to agreed facts tendered to the court, the burglars entered the site equipped with torches, rope, powered saws and a pry bar to steal copper wire from buildings.
Shortly after, one man reversed the ute through the garage door of the Main Transmission Building Garage Workshop and the other three used their tools to expose cables below the floor.
The men then connected the cables to the car by rope and tried to rip them out by repeatedly driving the vehicle out of the garage.
One burglar would later tell police they were unsuccessful because the cables "kept breaking".
"Costs of this damage are yet to be determined because heritage and restoration works impact the overall heritage fabric of the building," court documents said.
Police arrived about 4.26am to hear the car noises and to see flashlights.
Officers arrested Blundell and Taylor before finding a third man hiding in a cardboard box.
Avoiding Tasers, another burglar got away by driving the ute through the site's wire fence. The vehicle was found abandoned later that day and that fourth man was identified by police.
Blundell and Taylor are both set to appear in court again later this month for sentencing dates to be set.
