Jailed for importing cannabis worth £200k

Wednesday 05 February 2020

A London record shop owner working two jobs tried to smuggle more than 7kg of cannabis resin into Guernsey "to keep her precious business alive".

Jessica Vincent, 27, has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for attempting to import the cannabis resin, which had a street value of between £144k and £216k into the island.

Vincent was stopped at St Peter Port Harbour at 12:30 on 21 September 2019 having travelled from Poole, with Guernsey Border Agency officers noticing that she "looked pale" and was "shaking".

She told them she was only coming over for one night to see a friend and had never been in the island before, both of which were true. 

She denied having any drugs on her, but upon searching her vehicle, the spare tyre in the back of her Renault Clio drew suspicion as it weighed heavier than expected. 

Pictured: A bar of cannabis resin. 

It was examined further and seven packages were removed from it, containing 75 bars of cannabis resin weighing a total of 7.2kg. 

She denied any knowledge of how it got there during four interviews, but then requested a fifth, during which she made a full admission of the part she had played. 

Someone who she had bought drugs from in the UK had contacted her about making a drugs run to Guernsey during her brief visit to the island. 

He gave her the money for her travel and accommodation and offered to pay her £7,500 to take the car with her on the boat, then leave it at the hotel she was staying at, at which point an accomplice of his would take the car and distribute the drugs.

He told her cannabis resin was a Class C drug and that he was going to fill a spare tyre with it, which he put in the car while it was parked outside where Vincent was staying the night before her trip.

"If we are talking about bad choices, this was a whopper"

Vincent did not know the amount of "hash" she was importing, but Judge Finch said she should have known it was significant given how much money she was being paid to transport it.

Crown Advocate Rory Calderwood said her supplier was persuasive, but that Vincent did not feel threatened and had been "ridiculously naïve". Defence Advocate Sam Steel contested this, saying the supplier had called her constantly on the days leading up to her trip, as well as visiting her home and workplace unannounced. 

His client had received numerous glowing references as an "extremely motivated, ambitious and talented" young woman, who had started up her own mobile record shop, which was believed to be the only one of its kind in the UK. 

She was also working 40 hours a week as a nanny to fuel her dream. A new emissions law in the UK meant she had to replace her vehicle, a converted horsebox, in order to keep her business going, and she was struggling to stump up the cash.

Pictured: Vincent was stopped at Customs on her way into the island from Poole. 

Someone had given her "the opportunity to make some easy money", which she now describes as "the worst decision of her life". 

In sentencing, Judge Finch said she had no criminal history and was a very low risk of re-offending. However, her crime was serious and her role in the importation could have brought hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of cannabis onto the streets of Guernsey. 

"If we are talking about bad choices, this was a whopper," he told her. 

As one of her otherwise "effusive" references had said, "actions have consequences" and her's was a four and half year prison sentence, dated back to September, when she was put in custody.

It is likely she will return to the UK during her sentence via prison transfer. 

Pictured top: Jessica Vincent.