Warning given to drug dealers

Press, 2 September 1980, Page 4

Warning given to drug dealers

..Persons who dealt, m n class-. A drug such as LSD did SQ at their , peril, Mr Justice Roper said in the High Court' .when sentencing a man 40. a -year’s : imprisonpient-. on four Charges of supplying a total of 49 tablets of LSD to an undercover constable. Garry'.Errol Walker, aged 24, had pleaded guilty to the offences which were committed in March. .The policq statement said that When Walker was interviewed;, about his dealings With ' >,.the . undercover constable ' he was, frank. He kaid .that he had not. made any money from the transaction and had merely sold off tablets, that he did not require for his. own use, He knew the tablets as “trips” but claimed he did not know that, they .were <LSD until seen by the police. Mrs M. R. Evans, for Walker, said < that although he had four - convictions for supplying LSD he was not one of the big operators in the drug world. He used the pills because they gave him a feeling of pleasant intoxication- They were supplied by a friend who owed him a

debt and he had intended them for his own use. It was only when he was approached by the undercover constable that he sold some of the tablets to him. If it had not been for the request he would never have sold the drug. All the charges arose from : ope transaction which was 1 spread over three weeks. He i sold the drug for what it cost him and he made no profit, He was quite naive ( about drugs and did not ,

know the substance was LSD, Mrs Evans said. In reply to a question by his: Honour as to why it had been necessary for. the. undercover constable to keep going back once a person had supplied him with drugs, Mr G. K, Pankhurst said that the constable was trying to locate the source of supply and to bbtain evidence against . pers.oris. further up the chaip of supply, When ‘passihg sentence his Honour said thht he accepted that. Walker was not a big operator but for all that he had dealt in a class A drug gnd persons who did that did so at their, nerjl.. A lesser sentence than normal would pe imposed.

pleaded guilty. John Desmond Smitheram, aged 21, was convicted and remanded to September 15 for sentence on bail of $lOOO, . ; Sergeant Chadderton said that Smitheram had threatened to kill Constable Jerome Lawrence Hol after he was told he. was not allowed in th? bar carrying bottles of beer. . Smitheram had tried to Bush past the constable and le beer bottles had fallen to the ground. He had threatened to kill the constable three times. BREAKING, ENTERING An unemployed youth who tampered with vehicles in a police yard in Hereford street had taken. a, small sum of money from one car because the dole was hot enough to live on, the Court heard. Kevin James Lane, aged 18, was charged with break-j ing and entering .a police storage, shed and with entering a building unlawfully. Sergeant Chadderton said that Lane and.another yoyth had removed parts from cars ip the yard, entered the shed and had taken money from one car. Lane was convicted and remanded on bail of $3OO to September 15 for sentence. INTERIM SUPRESSION Interim supressiop wa? granted to an .unemployed cleaner who admitted in-