A young man has been sentenced to three years in prison for supplying LSD; a class A drug, and cannabis resin; a class B drug, over a period of three months before he was caught.
Tristan McIlroy, 21, pleaded guilty to two counts of supplying drugs and a further count of being in possession of cannabis resin. The offences took place whilst he was bound over for a criminal damage offence he had been given at a previous sentencing in May 2017.
Guernsey's Royal court heard from the prosecution that evidence had emerged which was strong enough for police officers to be granted a search warrant. On 24 August 2017 they went to the defendants address at around 22.00 and forcibly entered his flat. On entering, McIlroy was calm and compliant, and admitted to possessing a small amount of cannabis resin, which he alerted officers to on a wooden board with a tobacco pouch. There was 0.12grams of cannabis resin on the board.
Officers then searched the rest of the premises and noted a number of items including six zip lock plastic bags which they stated were like those used in drug dealing and a pair of scales.
On further examination the court heard how officers found a back pack outside the bedroom window of the property and found it to contain a plastic bag with a rotting fish. They also noted a brown bar and a container wrapped in duct tape in the gully outside the window in an outside area. With these finds they also found a note that they deemed to be a dealers list and a further list of numbers. The brown bar was found to be cannabis resin and the container was found to contain 23 paper squares of LSD tabs.
The three counts that the defendant pleaded guilty to were made up of the items found in this search where count one was for supplying a class A drug; namely LSD where 23 tabs were found, count two was for supplying a class B drug; namely cannabis resin where 96.32grams were seized and count three for the possession of the 0.12grams found on the wooden board.
After being taken into custody where McIlroy answered "no comment" to most of the questions put to him, he was released on police bail while the investigation took place. His IPhone had been seized as part of the investigation and he was asked to reveal his pass codes so that investigators could continue. As he did not reveal the codes they had to put in an application to enforce this. He finally did let the police officers know the codes following advice from his advocate.
Whilst McIlroy pleaded guilty and paperwork for a formal trial was not needed, some analysis on his phone records was done by an expert in the field from Guernsey Border Agency who summarised that: "In my opinion the majority of communications on the phone were in relation to the purchase, use and supply of LSD and cannabis, messages were not coded and common drug slang was used."
Concluding the prosecution the court heard that the LSD seized would have had a street value of between £12 to £15 per tab, totalling around £276 to £345. The cannabis resin, which was in a block with the Audi logo on was deemed to have a street value of between £20 and £30 per gram, so a total of between £1940 and £2910.
Pictured: Guernsey's Royal Court building
In his defence his advocate stated that McIlroy was a young man of 21; and only 20 at the time of the offence, and that he had lost his way due to the break down of a relationship and extended family issues. She told the court that this was a man who had only sold to known drug users and he had not gone out to sell to strangers and that it was certainly not a sophisticated operation with the dealing only lasting from May 2017 to August 2017, when he got caught.
In sentencing the Deputy Bailiff outlined the three charges and reminded McIlroy that the maximum sentence for count one, which was dealing the class A drug LSD was life in prison and the maximum for the class B drug was 21 years in prison.
He said that what made the matter worse was that this happened whilst he was bound over for a criminal damage offence. He also noted the concealment of the drugs that he had sought to hide in two separate places in a gully outside his bedroom window.
He further told the defendant that he was obliged to go with the 2012 sentencing guidelines in the relation of the supply of one drug to another as an appropriate starting point for sentencing and in this respect the same guidelines remained at each point in the chain in relation to drug dealing as each part of the process had to play their part for this to work and therefore each should be equally punished in the consequences of being caught.
He stated that the starting point in this instance would be seven years in prison taking into account the amounts involved, the concealment and lack of co-operation with his mobile phone.
He told the defendant he had listened to all mitigation and assessed he was no risk to the public. He took into account his young age, clear remorse and guilty plea, however he stated that he had little sympathy for the explanation that he only sold to known drugs users. He said: "this is hardly mitigation."
He said he took into account the last year while he had been waiting for sentencing and said: "Keep in mind this last year does not define you, learn from mistakes and serve to become a useful member of the community."
In giving sentence the Deputy Bailiff said: "The misuse of drugs are one of the scourges of society at this time and the court still sees custodial sentences as a deterrent."
McIlroy was sentenced to three years in prison for the supply of LSD and 12 months for the supply of cannabis resin; to run concurrently. He was given a further seven days to run concurrently for the possession charge and no action was given in respect of his bind over.
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