CRIMINAL CASE NOS. 339 OF 2010 and 167 OF 2011 (Consolidated)
COURT: I have to deal with you for trafficking in a dangerous drug on Counts 1 and 2, and for the possession of dangerous drugs on Counts 3 and 4.
In July of last year you were stopped with 1.48 grammes of “Ice” on your person, and back at your premises there was a further 13.29 grammes of the same drug. There were also 100 tablets of nimetazepam.
You told the police at the time, and your mitigation is presented on the basis that the majority of that “Ice” was to be for your own consumption, but you acknowledged that you would share some of it with friends.
One of the advantages of pleading guilty, other than the third discount, is that you have not spent your credibility and lost it in a trial. Accordingly, I will deal with you on the basis that is put forward on your behalf, and it is right too that I publicly acknowledge that it was you telling the police that you would share with friends that provided the evidence of trafficking against you. The total of just 14.77 grammes of “Ice” by itself may not have been sufficient, without those admissions, to have proved trafficking against you.
So I do regard this as a case where there would be substantial self-consumption of the drugs in question, and that any residual trafficking would have been social trafficking, not done for profit, but done and confined to supplying your friends in a social context.
It will have been explained to you that sentencing for drug trafficking follows guidelines, and I think the two amounts of drugs in the first two counts together, that total of 14.77 grammes, puts you in the 10 to 70 gramme bracket, attracting a starting point for sentence after trial for ordinary trafficking, if I could call it that, of 7 to 10 years.
Because of the element of substantial self use and the social nature of the trafficking, I shall reduce the starting point quite significantly from 7 years down to 4½ years.
You earn a one-third discount for your plea.
Therefore, the sentences on Counts 1 and 2 will be sentences of 3 years’ imprisonment, to run concurrently to each other, but I make it clear that the sentence on Count 1 is a sentence following the grossing-up of the two amounts together, and would not have been passed if it had stood alone.
Whilst on bail awaiting trial for this case in the High Court, you were unwise enough to commit a further offence. You were caught with 0.38 of a gramme of cocaine on your person, and back at your premises there was a further 4.14 grammes of the same drug. The total is therefore 4.52 grammes. Of course, on these counts, I deal with you for possession only.
I understand that a starting point for simple possession is some 12 to 18 months’ imprisonment. By amount and circumstance, your case falls at the top end of that bracket, and I shall take a starting point of 18 months’ imprisonment and reduce that by one-third to 12 months, and that will be the sentence on Counts 3 and 4, to run concurrently to each other.
The question then arises how should the sentences on Counts 3 and 4 relate to the sentences on Counts 1 and 2? If you commit an offence on bail, then you should expect the sentence to run wholly consecutively, unless it creates too great a total. Running it consecutively produces a sentence in total of 4 years.
I do not regard that, looking at the conduct overall on the indictment, as being too great a total. I was minded to be generous on Counts 1 and 2. I am not minded to be so generous when it comes to working out how 3 and 4 should relate to the first sentences.
It was a matter of choice whether you committed further crime, and with these High Court proceedings then hanging over your head, you must expect to pay a high price in terms of whether it is consecutive or concurrent when it comes to being caught committing further crime by choice.
The overall sentence is thus one of 4 years’ imprisonment.