Jersey Unreported Judgments

 2002/5

ROYAL COURT

(Samedi Division)

10^th January 2002

The Attorney General

-v-

Daniel Ernest de Caen.

Sentencing by the Superior Number of the Royal Court, to which the accused was remanded by the Inferior Number on 14th December, 2001, following a guilty plea to the following charges:

Age:     20        

Plea:    Guilty.

Details of Offence:

Total 450 tabs, initially ran away from police but caught and thereafter co-operative.  

Details of Mitigation:

Guilty plea, wrote his own indictment, hearing difficulties, in debt, funding own habit.

Previous Convictions:

Minor driving offences only. 

Conclusions:

All concurrent. 8 years' Youth Detention starting point.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Conclusions granted.

N. M. Santos-Costa, Esq., Crown Advocate.

Advocate Mrs S.A. Pearmain for the accused.

JUDGMENT

THE commissioner:

1.        Three police officers on plain clothes duty questioned de Caen as he left Les Folies d'Amour nightclub on Saturday 27^th October, 2001.  He ran off, but was apprehended and restrained.  He was found to have 124 2CB tablets, which is an Ecstasy derivative and £710 in cash.  At his home address various papers were seized and de Caen accepted that these were deal lists and amounts of money owed to him from previous drug transactions.  He admitted to having dealt in some 300 Ecstasy tablets over the previous month and had made a profit of about £600.  He admitted to having sold some 24 tablets prior to his arrest and that, therefore, part of the money was his own.  He was apparently making £2 per tablet, selling them for £10 each.  He also admitted that the 2CB powder found in the search of his home was for his personal use.  The white powder and the tablets were the same form of Ecstasy. 

2.        De Caen is currently 20 years' old.  He was, clearly, trafficking in a class A drug on a significant commercial scale, but, again, there is mitigation.  De Caen has written his own indictment in respect of counts 3 and 5 and his decline into drug abuse is tragic, and is not helped by his hearing defect. 

3.        The guideline Court of Appeal judgment of Bonnar and Noon (26^th October, 2001) Jersey Unreported CofA; [2001/212] gives a starting point of 7 to 9 years', for 1 to 500 units.  The Court of Appeal said that the sentencing band should not be lower than those they set out.  This was dealing in a drug of high potency.  As DC de la Haye in his report says the dosages of this particular drug make these tablets a potentially frightening experience for users expecting the usual effects of an ordinary ecstasy tablet. 

4.        Under the provisions of Article 4 of the Criminal Justice (Young Offenders) (Jersey) Law 1994, I have to tell you that the totality of your offending is so serious that a non-custodial sentence cannot be justified and its impact is not disputed by your learned counsel.  We have looked at this very carefully, but we feel that the Crown has made every possible allowance for mitigation and we are going to follow the conclusions of the Crown and, therefore, formally, I must sentence you to 6 months' Youth Detention on count 1, 2 years' Youth Detention on count 2, 1 year's Youth Detention on count 3, 2 weeks Youth Detention on count 4 and 4 years' Youth Detention on count 5, concurrent and I also have to tell you that you may be liable to personal supervision after your release from youth custody.  We order the forfeiture and destruction of the drugs.

Authorities

Bonnar and Noon -v- AG (26^th October, 2001) Jersey Unreported CofA; [2001/212].