Award for stupidity but no jail time

Saturday 28 April 2018

A 56-year-old year old man has been given an "award for stupidity" by Guernsey's Royal Court, after he was caught smoking cannabis in a car with the windows down outside La Piette Hotel at 11:00 on a Friday morning.

Mark Hearne was given 200 hours community service and a £2,000 fine for two counts of possession of cannabis resin and one count of possession of herbal cannabis that totalled nearly 200g.

The police man who came across the vehicle Hearne was inside said he immediately smelt the cannabis, and approached the two men inside it.

Officers found in Hearne's possession a total 192.43g of cannabis, in his car and property. Much of it was in a large brick weighing 174.9g, and the remainder was hidden around the property. It came to a total of between £3,848 and £5,772 in Guernsey street value.

Hearne's defence advocate said he had had an opportunity to buy the drug for a discounted price in bulk, hence the quantity. 

It was argued there were a number of "sensitive reasons", disclosed to the Jurats, why the court should consider a non-custodial sentence. The court also heard he was self-medicating with the cannabis after he was hit by a car going 35mph in 2011. Letters were presented from doctors confirming he had chronic "severe pain".

Judge Russell Finch said the way in which Hearne was caught, outside a public house on a Friday morning in the complete open, was surprising.

"If there was a prize for stupidity, you'd win it," Judge Finch told Hearne. "This is the sort of behaviour we would expect from a stupid teenager, not a man like yourself."

In total, Hearne received 200 hours of community service for each charge of possession of cannabis resin, but they are to run consecutively, and the £2,000 fine. In default of those charges, he will serve 18 months in prison.

The man Hearne was arrested alongside was sentenced previously in the Magistrate's Court for possession of the cannabis the two men were smoking at the time of the arrest.