Andrew John Bennett (56), from Fulham, was sentenced to 7½ years in prison by the Royal Court’s Superior Number, for one count of importing a class A drug and another for failing to supply police with a passcode for two of his electronic devices.
He was stopped by Customs officers at the Airport after flying from Bristol on 30 April this year, when Bennett told them he was in the Island for three days to play poker at ‘local clubs’.
After searching Bennett’s bag, officers found white powder inside a blue plastic bag, which later turned out to be cocaine.
Crown Advocate Sam Brown, prosecuting, said the cocaine was of ‘relatively high purity’ and would have had a street value of between £18,000 and £25,000. The advocate described Bennett as a ‘trusted courier’.
Advocate Julia-Ann Dix, defending, said that her client had made a living as a poker player, alongside being a live-in carer.
She said Bennett travelled to Jersey on numerous occasions to play poker and had been ‘very successful’, but ‘unfortunately’ after consuming too much alcohol during a game in March this year, he racked up a £60,000 debt. She said Bennett was asked to pay the money back straight away ‘or do something to pay his debt’, or ‘something would happen to his family’.
‘He was undertaking this role as a desperate measure,’ she said, adding that Bennett ‘felt relieved’ when he was stopped by Customs, ‘because the nightmare was over’.
Advocate Dix said Bennett had explained to probation that carrying the drugs was ‘an out-of-character and one-off event’. She said Bennett had never committed an offence like this before and it was not a ‘sophisticated importation’.
However, Advocate Brown said Bennett refused to provide passcodes to an iPad and iPhone that were seized from his bag, resulting in only the second instance in Jersey that a person was being sentenced for ‘failing to disclose keys’, after being given two opportunities to do so. Advocate Dix said Bennett had not provided the passcodes as he ‘feared his family would be hurt and did not want to give any further information to Customs and police’ and ‘accepted full responsibility’ for the offences.
Bennett received a sentence of six years and three months on Thursday for the drug-related offence and 15 months for the second offence, which will run consecutively.
Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith was presiding. Jurats Collette Crill, Jane Ronge and Robert Christensen were sitting.
