Jersey Unreported Judgments

[2003]JRC183

ROYAL COURT

(Samedi Division)

 

16^th October 2003

 

 

The Attorney General

-v-

William John Prentice

 

Sentencing by the Superior Number of the Royal Court, to which the Defendant was remanded by the Inferior Number on 1^st August, 2003, following a guilty plea to:

 

1 count of:	Possession of a controlled drug, contrary to Article 6(1) of the Misuse of Drugs (Jersey) Law, 1978, Count 1: cannabis resin.
1 count of:	Being concerned in the supply of a controlled drug contrary to Article 5(c) of the Misuse of Drugs (Jersey) Law, 1978, Count 2: cannabis resin.

 

Age:     30.

 

Details of Offence:

Customs Officers intercepted two packages which arrived on the Commodore Goodwill from Portsmouth.  The consignee was Good Moves Limited of Minden Place, St Helier.  The packages were delivered to Good Moves.  Customs Officers executed a search warrant and the packages were opened and found to contain 23.488 kilograms of cannabis resin with a combined wholesale value of £96,000, and a combined street value of £138,240.  Substitute bars were placed in the packages which were resealed and the substitute packages were returned to the Good Moves Limited's premises.  The packages were ultimately collected from Good Moves Limited's premises.  The Defendant was later seen taking the two packages out of his car and taking them into the premises he was occupying in St Helier.  Following the execution of a search warrant at the premises the Defendant was found in possession of the two substitute packages.  A personal amount of cannabis resin was found in the Defendant's bedroom.  (Count 1).

 

Details of Mitigation:

The Defendant was 'minding' the drugs.  He was persuaded to take custody of the packages because of a debt.  The Defendant maintained that he did not have express knowledge that the packages contained drugs but suspected this to be the case.  He was to hand back the drugs on the same day.  The Defendant had pleaded guilty but this was not an inevitable plea.  The Defendant had been in custody for 8½ months.

 

Previous Convictions:

Numerous including one previous for possession of a controlled drug.

 

Conclusions:

 

Count 1:	7 days' imprisonment
Count 2:	5½ years' imprisonment, concurrent (8 year starting point).

Confiscation Order: £236.70.

The Crown was of the view that although the Campbell guidelines did not apply to the offence of 'being concerned' they should be considered for if the drugs had not been substituted the Defendant would have been guilty of possession with intent to supply.  If Campbell applied then the starting point would be 8 years.  The Defendant's guilty plea merited the full one third discount but there was no other mitigation.

 

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Conclusions granted. 

Confiscation Order: £236.70.

The Court accepted Defendant's explanation that he was acting as a 'minder' for a short period. The Court had to try and ascertain the part played by the Defendant.  The Campbell guidelines did not apply.  The Court took account of the Defendant's guilty plea, his co-operation, his remorse and the pressure of his financial obligations.

 

 

D.E. Le Cornu, Esq, Crown Advocate.

Advocate J. Bell for the Defendant.

 

 

 

JUDGMENT

 

 

 

THE BAILIFF:

1.        This defendant had pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cannabis resin to another.  The amount of the drug was very substantial.  There were over 23 kilograms with a street value of some £130,000.

2.        It is important, therefore, that we make clear the basis upon which we are sentencing the Defendant.  The short history is that Customs Officers received information which led them to suspect that a consignment addressed to a firm called "Good Moves Limited" would contain drugs. 

3.        The consignment was intercepted and another substance was substituted.  A controlled delivery was subsequently made to the Defendant who had solicited the delivery giving the false name of Stevens.  The Defendant claims that he was merely a minder of the drugs and was looking after them for a short period, before they were collected from him.

4.        When the Customs Officers entered the Defendant's premises shortly after the consignment had been delivered, the Defendant was talking into a mobile telephone which he immediately dropped.  One of the packages which had originally contained the cannabis had been opened.  When the Defendant was interviewed he exercised his right of silence and gave "no comment" answers to any of the material questions put to him.

5.        Through his Counsel the Defendant has claimed that he had taken delivery of the packages, which he suspected to contain drugs, at the request of a man to whom he was to return the drugs at the end of that day. 

6.        We are accepting that explanation and sentencing the Defendant on the basis that he was going to be a minder of the drugs for a comparatively short period.  The Crown Advocate has, however, rightly drawn our attention to a passage from a judgment of the English Court of Appeal in R -v- Harris (1998) 1 Cr. App.R (S) 38 in the following terms:

"It was argued before the sentencing judge that the appellant should be treated as a minder, or somebody simply holding the drugs for a short space of time and therefore not in the most serious category of those charged with possession with intent to supply.

In his sentencing remarks this very experienced judge made it clear that in his view, with which we agree, a minder performs an essential service to the dealer, in that the dealer is often prepared, as in this case, to entrust him with substantial quantities of drugs.  That, as a result, carries with it the corollary that the minder is often close to the dealer.  The judge went so far as to say that the offence of possession with intent to supply as a minder is not far short, on the scale of seriousness, of the dealer himself. That was his justification for imposing the sentence which he did.

We have great sympathy with that view.  There is no doubt that this judge will have had to deal on a regular basis with this offence and with those who put forward this account of how it was that they came to be in possession of the drugs in question.  We can readily understand why he would wish to send out the message which clearly he intended to send out in this particular case.

Mr Harris, appearing before us on behalf of the appellant, has, however, submitted that in so doing, the learned judge fell into error because he failed to take properly into account the guidance from this Court relating to possession of drugs as a minder.  He referred us to Arif [1994] 15 Cr.App.R(S) 895, in which Holland J giving the judgment of the Court stated that a minder was not to be treated as being in the same position as a courier, but fell somehow lower down the scale of criminality.  That sentiment was echoed in Spalding [1990] 16 Cr. App. R(S) 803.

In the opinion of this Court those remarks need to be considered with caution, because the position of the minder in any given case will depend upon the amount of drugs involved and what inferences can properly be drawn from the surrounding circumstances as to the part he was playing in the overall supply of the drugs.  There may well be circumstances in which the position of the minder is one which justifies the conclusion that he is more serious involved in the drug trade than the courier."

7.        That passage was approved by this Court in Attorney General -v- Welsh (3^rd February, 2000) Jersey Unreported; [2000/74] and again in that case by the Court of Appeal.  What we have to do is to try to ascertain the part which Prentice was playing in the supplying of the cannabis resin.

8.        This is not a case, contrary to the submission of the Crown Advocate, for the application of the formula in Campbell -v- Attorney General [1995] JLR 136.  That is clear from the judgment of this Court in Attorney General -v- Antunes and Ors [2003]JRC072.  Even on the assumption, however, that Prentice was merely a minder of the drugs, it is clear that he was trusted by and close to the source of supply.  That seems to us to be an inescapable inference to be drawn from the fact that he would, but for the intervention of the authorities, have been in possession of 23 kilograms of cannabis resin valued on the street at over £130,000.

9.        He was sufficiently close, notwithstanding that he was a mere minder of the drugs for a short period, to have presumed to open one of the packets.  For the avoidance of doubt, we accept as a coincidence, the fact that the consignor of the drugs gave a Glasgow address which is the city from which Prentice arrived in Jersey.  We have taken account of his guilty plea and the advice of Mr Gafoor that Prentice is a relatively unsophisticated young man who could be manipulated by more cynical men.  He was co-operative to some extent in that he took part in an identification parade.  We accept that he is now remorseful and that he acted under the pressure of financial obligations.

10.      At the end of the day, however, he was involved in minding what he believed to be a very substantial quantity of cannabis resin capable of spreading considerably the pernicious habit of drug taking amongst people, and young people in particular, in this Island.  We consider that the conclusions of the Crown Advocate including the starting point which he adopted are correct.

11.      You are accordingly sentenced by this Court to 5½ years' imprisonment on count 2, and 1 week's imprisonment, concurrent, on count 1, and the forfeiture and destruction of the drugs are ordered.

Authorities

A.G. -v- McMahon (27^th April, 2000); Jersey Unreported [2000/74].

A.G. -v- Welsh (3^rd February, 2000); Jersey Unreported [2000/21].

A.G. -v- Welsh (4^th April, 2002) Jersey Unreported [2002/72].

A.G. -v- McCool and Heys (9^th March, 2000) Jersey Unreported [2000/45].

A.G. -v- Ahmed (14^th November, 2001) Jersey Unreported [2001/229].

A.G. -v- Antunes and Ors [2003] JRC072.

Campbell -v- A.G. [1995] JLR136.