Three times man with drugs refused to unlock mobiles
THREE drug offences had crossed the custody threshold alone but the perpetrator’s refusal to let police examine the contents of his mobile phone had taken his sentence ‘halfway to the Moon and back’, according to a judge.
Judge Graeme McKerrell said in such circumstances, anything other than a custodial sentence would in effect be giving a blank cheque to those who have something to hide and who seek to thwart criminal investigations.
Thomas Amos-Brown, 27, who appeared in the Magistrate’s Court from custody, admitted three counts of possessing class B controlled substances and three of failing to disclose information within seven days when bound to do so under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bailiwick of Guernsey Law.
He was jailed for a total of 18 months.
Prosecuting officer Sarah Watson told the court that at about 11pm on 15 December 2017, police had gone to the defendant’s home in Skins Lane, St Peter Port, to arrest him for another matter that was not pursued.
When he ran from the back of the house he was apprehended by a waiting police officer. Amos-Brown fell to the floor and dropped a silver mobile phone.
A total of 92.58g of cannabis resin was found either on the defendant or in the house.
There was also £4,438 in cash in the house.
The defendant told a detective they would not be able to prove the phone that fell was his.
In August last year, police went to his home in relation to another matter.
Five wraps suspected of being cannabis were found. A package containing 0.22g of 4-CEC [a psychoactive substance] was found in his shorts.
Drugs to the value of £1,000 were also found at the property but they were not subject to the charges.
A search while in custody revealed that Amos-Brown was also carrying £500 cash.
When a drugs search warrant was executed at the defendant’s home in November, controlled substances and various drug paraphernalia were found.
The defendant was arrested and while being checked he volunteered 1.01g of cannabis to police that was in his sock.
In each incident phones were seized, but Amos-Brown refused to give police the codes to unlock them.
Miss Watson said it was case law that a court could assume the worst and that a defendant might be hiding something in order to avoid a higher penalty.
Advocate Phoebe Cobb, representing Amos-Brown, said the cannabis seized on the first occasion was for his personal use and it was a possession charge.
The 4-CEC was a small amount and the backdrop to his offending behaviour had been his issues with substance abuse.
His record was clearly an unenviable one, although not littered with drugs offences, and he had already served spells in custody.
In response to a question from Judge McKerrell, she said her client had been the subject of two adjudications during the sentence he was serving, one for disobedience and another for a drug matter, for which he had been punished.
Judge McKerrell said the defendant had an unenviable record and a long history of drug abuse.
The 92g of cannabis was significant when considered against the other matters and the offence put him towards the upper limit of the court’s sentencing powers.
In relation to the non-disclosure matters, the court was entitled to conclude that the defendant had something to hide.
