Chehade stole the car without noticing an eight-month-old boy was in the back seat, while the boy's mother screamed in terror and ran after the stolen vehicle outside a factory in Campbellfield.

A Melbourne County Court judge on Tuesday regarded the terror caused to the infant's parents as "unimaginable" in jailing Chehade for offences the judge said could not be tolerated.

Judge Frank Saccardo said that while he was satisfied that Chehade had expressed immediate remorse on arrest to police for the unintended consequences of stealing the car, he doubted the extent of Chehade's remorse.

Mark Tawaf, whose son Cooper was recovered safe and unharmed soon after he disappeared, said in a victim impact statement that he and his wife Laura felt angry, hurt and frustrated by the random incident.

"I hope one day you can put yourself in our shoes and understand what you did will change our life forever," Mr Tawaf told Chehade in the statement.

Chehade had seen the car parked in a driveway with the keys in the console at about 10.30am on June 6, 2013.

After speeding off he heard a noise behind him and saw Cooper in a back-seat capsule. He stopped and, as he later told police, "I just sat there and I was just thinking to myself 'what are the chances of this ever happening?'".

Chehade, who soon after dumped Cooper unharmed in the doorway of a local hairdressing salon, also said after his arrest: "All I wanted ... All I did is just steal a car."

He pleaded guilty to charges of theft, reckless conduct endangering life and driving while disqualified.

According to prosecutor Karen Argiropoulos, Chehade - who had been released on parole less than three weeks earlier - said in his record of interview that at the time "he just wanted to get home".

Defence barrister Tara Hartnett said that nothing in her plea for Chehade, 44, could do anything to minimise the seriousness of the offending or soften the "terror and fear" Cooper's parents felt.

Ms Hartnett said police confirmed that her client, whose "appalling" criminal history involved car thefts from adolescence, had been distressed during his interview, which had indicated his remorse.

Ms Argiropoulos told the court that when Chehade stole the car, the Tawafs were in the factory with their other son, aged four, and that Ms Tawaf was about five metres away when she heard the car door shut and saw the vehicle reverse from the driveway.

"She ran after the car screaming," Ms Argiropoulos said, but the car had sped off.

Chehade later told police he realised within seconds a baby was in the car and then drove to the nearby hairdressing salon where he left the baby, along with one of two mobile phones that were in the stolen car.

"He told police that he did this so that the parents could ring the phone and find their child," Ms Argiropoulos said.

She "looked down and saw that the man had dumped a baby in a baby seat," Ms Argiropoulos said.

Chehade was then seen driving erratically before a brief police pursuit was abandoned and the air wing monitored the stolen car.

Ms Argiropoulos said the erratic manner of Chehade's driving — he entered two red lights, sped at an estimated 120km/h, swerved from side to side and fishtailed before colliding with two other cars — was reckless and put, or may have put, others in danger of death.

In her plea in mitigation for Chehade, Ms Hartnett noted, with Judge Saccardo, the generous sentiments expressed by Mr Tawaf in his statement that he wished her client the "best of luck in whatever the future holds for you, and I hope you learn by all of this".

Ms Hartnett noted that in 1988, when he was 18, Chehade was convicted of charges that included car theft and that from then, despite a break between 2003 and 2012, it "goes on and on and on ... It's a very grim tale".

She said the latest offences, which did not involve drugs or alcohol, fitted in part what he had often done, which was to steal cars "almost routinely", although on this occasion it was agreed it was a spontaneous decision.

Ms Hartnett said she would be misleading the court if she submitted Chehade's prospects of rehabilitation were good, given his history and that he had breached parole, but she argued he should get maximum credit for his guilty pleas.

Ms Argiropoulos conceded the offending was spontaneous and that Chehade was upset after he realised a baby was involved, but she argued he had shown no remorse for the offences to which he had pleaded guilty.

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Saccardo described Chehade's pattern of offending, which included dishonesty and driving charges, as being committed with "monotonous regularity".

He said Chehade had endangered the lives of other road users and that part of the sentencing process was to protect the community from any future offending.

Chehade was jailed for three years and six months and was ordered to serve a minimum of 27 months.