Non-custodial Sentence for Leading Role Supplying Class A Drugs

Our client was initially charged with one count of Possession of Class B and one count of Possession with Intent to Supply Class A. The Prosecution indicated that they believed our client’s phone contained evidence of significant supply of Class A drugs. Our client accepted and pleaded guilty to Possession of Class B but denied Possession with Intent to Supply. At the Magistrates’ Court we offered the prosecution a guilty plea to simple Possession of Class A, but the prosecution refused to take it.

The matter was therefore sent to the Crown Court, where the prosecution charged our client with four counts of Being Concerned in Supplying a Controlled Drug of Class A, as well as two alternate counts of Possessing a Controlled Drug of Class A. The prosecution also served a Drug Expert Report which used our client’s phone evidence to suggest he had supplied amounts of Heroin worth £250 in single deals, and that he was therefore likely a middleman who was supplying lower-level dealers. Our client denied this, stating that he sometimes bought drugs using money pooled from among his friends and then shared the drugs out (“social supply”), but totally denied ever handling drugs worth as much as £250.

We acquired the phone evidence that the prosecution relied on and did our own analysis. We determined that the prosecution’s Drug Expert had entirely misinterpreted the messages, and we offered a guilty plea to the charges on the basis of social supply. We supported our basis of plea with our own analysis of the messages, which showed there was no evidence that our client made significant money or supplied large amounts of drugs, nor supplied drugs to anyone he did not know.

Following some negotiation, the prosecution accepted our basis of plea and our client was sentenced to a 24-month suspended sentence.

Lorena Lowen had conduct of this case, assisted by Hugo Cheema-Grubb. We instructed David Kitson, solicitor-advocate of Sonn Macmillan Walker.