Superior Number Sentencing - drugs - supply - Class A
[2025]JRC049
Royal Court
(Samedi)
20 February 2025
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Before :
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R. J. MacRae, Esq., Deputy Bailiff, and
Jurats Ronge, Le Cornu, Cornish, Le Heuzé and Hughes.
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The Attorney General
-v-
Deive Da Silva Pires
Sentencing by the
Superior Number of the Royal Court, following a guilty plea to the following
charges:
Age: 43.
Plea: Guilty
Details of Offence:
On 25 October 2024 police were
conducting surveillance of an address (‘the Property’). At approximately 5:30pm the Defendant
was seen by officers parking his car with his wife in the passenger seat. He exited the vehicle and entered the
Property.
After ten minutes the Defendant left
the Property, and he was approached by officers who detaining and searched
him. The Defendant stated to
police: “I’ve got coke” and admitted to having 30
grams of cocaine in his possession. He was then arrested. The drugs were tested and revealed to be
cocaine with a 39% purity and a weight of 29.7 grams. The value of the drugs was determined to
be between £4,500 and £7,500.
In interview the Defendant stated he
purchased drugs and intended to keep a quarter of the cocaine for himself and
sell the rest to his friends. The
Defendant’s property was searched on 26 October 2024 and a small tin was
located including small snap seal bags and three boxes of Pro Plus caffeine
tablets. When questioned in
interview the Defendant denied making a profit but stated that he used the
caffeine tablets to bulk up the drugs before selling them to his friends.
The Defendant’s mobile phone was
seized and analysed; the data confirmed that the Defendant attended the
Property to purchase drugs.
Details of Mitigation:
Early guilty plea.
Previous Convictions:
The Defendant has no relevant
previous convictions.
Conclusions:
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Count 1:
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5 years and 8 months’ imprisonment.
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Postpone confiscation order sought
to 21 March 2025.
Forfeiture and destruction of the
drugs and mobile phone seized sought.
Sentence and Observations of Court:
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Count 1:
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4 years and 6 months’ imprisonment.
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4 years 6
months’ imprisonment.
Postpone confiscation
order to 21 March 2025.
Forfeiture and
destruction of the drugs and mobile phone seized ordered.
C.L. G. Carvalho, Crown Advocate.
Advocate J-A.C. Dix, for the Defendant.
JUDGMENT
THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:
1.
Mr Pires,
please stand up. You are 43 years
old, born in Jersey, and fall to be sentenced for the possession of 30 grams of
cocaine with the intent to supply.
You have no relevant previous convictions, and we treat you as a man of
good character.
2.
On 25
October 2024, the address of Steven Pacheco was under police surveillance. At 5.30 pm you were seen parking your car
nearby and then entering his address and leaving just 10 minutes later. As you left a customs officer approached
you and asked you if you had any drugs in your possession. You immediately admitted that you had 30
grams of cocaine on your person.
3.
In the
interview with the police and customs that followed, you said that you had to
pay £4,000 in cash for drugs and a gram was £180 and, owing to the
amount of cocaine that you were supplied with, this meant you still owed Mr
Pacheco £1400. You had
arranged the transaction by WhatsApp.
You had been buying cocaine from Mr Pacheco since January 2024 in
amounts of between 2 and 10 grams.
You said a quarter of the drugs were to be yours and the rest were to
sell to friends who had given you money for that purpose.
4.
Although
you say that you did not make financial gain as a consequence of these
transactions and what you planned to do with these 30 grams, this was on any
view a supply for money, and therefore a commercial transaction. You were going to dilute the purity of
the drug before selling it on in order to make sufficient money to pay for your
consumption of this drug.
5.
You
disclosed your PIN number and your mobile telephone number to the police and
executed a bank disclosure authority.
You said you wanted to be as helpful as you could to the police and your
counsel has drawn our attention to the transcript of your police interview
today. We note that the officer who
interviewed you was impressed with your honesty and your openness with him, and
we accept that you could not of been more cooperative than you were.
6.
The drugs
were confirmed as amounting to 29.7 grams of cocaine with a purity of 39% and a
street value of between £4,500 and £7,500. You pleaded guilty at the first
opportunity on the 28 October 2024 when you appeared before the
Magistrate’s Court.
7.
The Crown
said the starting point for this offence ought to be 8 years and 6
months’ imprisonment. Having
regard to your role, as set out in the Crown’s summary of facts and
conclusions and having heard from your advocate, we fix the starting point at 8
years imprisonment.
8.
You told
the probation officer that this quantity was the largest amount of cocaine you
had ever collected from Mr Pacheco.
You said that the effect of the sale to your friends was that you had
additional cocaine for your own use.
Accordingly, you were benefitting from this transaction and in any
event, this was unlawful supply of a dangerous Class A drug, which we hope and
understand you now fully appreciate.
You were, as such, a significant part of the chain of supply.
9.
You are
married, you have lived with your wife for 12 years and you have an 8-year-old
son. You are concerned about the
effect imprisonment will have on your family. We note that your wife is standing by you
and has written to the Court in moving terms about you and your ability as a
parent. We have also read other
references from people who know you well and indeed have known you all your
life.
10. You are hardworking and you have always worked,
having held your last job for some 16 years and your current job for 5
years. Your current employer is
keeping your job open for you. You
have significant debts, and that is largely because of you were spending over
£1000 a week on cocaine. You
were using money from your credit card; you were borrowing money, and you were
gambling to support your drug use.
11. This case illustrates the devastating effect of
addiction to Class A drugs. You hid
the extent of your addiction and its consequential effect upon you from your
wife, and you are very concerned about what you have done to the detriment of
the financial position of your wife and son. It is clear that you are a victim of
drug addiction as well as a beneficiary of supplying cocaine to others. You regret what you have done, and we
accept that your remorse is genuine.
12. We have read with care the probation report and
the psychological assessment of Dr Foster and taken into account their
contents. You are assessed as being
at medium risk of re-conviction but low risk of harm to the public as a whole.
13. Unfortunately, you were a trusted and regular
buyer of a Class A drug and a substantial link in the chain of supply from a
significant dealer to others. We
accept from your counsel that this behaviour was out of character, and we
accept that so far as you are concerned the greatest punishment for you is that
you will be unable to support your family for the period of your custodial
sentence. We encourage you to do
the work plan recommended by the probation officer which apparently is
something you can complete whilst you are in custody. The least sentence we can impose and the
sentence that we do impose is 4 years and 6 months’ imprisonment.
Authorities
Misuse of Drugs (Jersey) Law 1978
Rimmer
v AG [2001] JLR 373
AG
v MacKenzie & Richards [2011] JLR 689
AG
v Buckley [2008] JLR Note 34
AG
v Le Guillou [2024] JCA 204