- Three drug traffickers jailed in one day for four separate plots.
- £60,000 worth of drugs seized.
- Read full reports into all of the cases below.
THREE drugs traffickers were yesterday jailed for a total of more than 13 years after police and Customs officials smashed four plots to flood the Island with class A drugs.
In separate cases, the authorities seized £60,000 worth of drugs including heroin and ecstasy.
On Monday, UK-based serial criminal Mark Hollings, who the court heard was ‘deeply embedded in organised crime’, was jailed for four years and seven months for importing heroin into the Island inside a birthday card.
In another case, 25-year-old commercial dealer Aaron Higgins was jailed for five and a half years – and the man he supplied the heroin to, Stuart Hutchison (29), was jailed for three years.
And 22-year-old Thomas Howard was spared jail after being caught with £1,100 worth of ecstasy tablets at Jersey Live.
Of the prisoners currently serving time in La Moye, more than a fifth have been jailed for drug offences, including cases relating to importation, possession and supplying drugs. The prison population is currently 153, of which 36 are serving time for drug offences.
Despite the high number of such cases, the percentage of prisoners in La Moye who are detained for drug offences has dropped since December 2008, when over half of the prisoners in La Moye were locked up for smuggling, possessing or dealing drugs.
As late as June 2012, 48 per cent of prison sentences were for drug crimes.
Bill Millar, governor of La Moye Prison, said that the percentage of drug offenders jailed had shifted in recent years, but that a large number of inmates were still imprisoned for such offences.
He said: ‘It has shifted quite significantly and the long sentences for drugs-related offences have gone down which is reflected in the fact that the prison population has reduced.
‘When I took over, I think there were about 20 female prisoners –every one was in for drug trafficking.
‘Now, I don’t think any female prisoners are in for drug trafficking.’
Mr Millar suggested that changes in the drugs market had led to the decrease in prisoners.
He added: ‘One of the significant factors would be that the preferred drugs of use have changed.
‘There has been a shift towards prescription drugs which means there are not as many category A importation cases that attract long sentences.
‘Another factor is that Jersey has a very low tolerance for drugs related cases and I believe that that message is getting out, especially to the UK.’
A COMMERCIAL drug dealer caught with tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of heroin has been jailed for 5½ years, and the man he supplied imprisoned for three years.
Aaron Daniel Higgins was found to have hidden £49,000 worth of the class A drug when police raided a St Clement sports centre last October. He was also guilty of supplying a further £7,000 worth of heroin to Stuart Daniel Hutchinson.
Both Higgins (25) and Hutchinson (29) were yesterday sentenced to lengthy prison terms by the Superior Number of the Royal Court after pleading guilty to a number of drug charges. On 18 October plain-clothes police officers went to the Jersey Squash and Racketball Club at the St Clement Recreation Grounds, where Higgins was playing squash.
A short time later Hutchinson joined Higgins at the club and officers watched the two disappearing into the toilets of Partners restaurant.
The pair were arrested when they left the toilet after Hutchinson admitted carrying 6.95g of heroin and Higgins was found with more than £2,000 in cash.
The next day police raided the squash club changing rooms and found a sports bag belonging to Higgins containing 48.1g of heroin.
A small amount of ecstasy was also discovered at Higgins’s home, as well as 18 tablets of the class C drug stanozolol.
Earlier this year, Higgins pleaded guilty to supplying heroin to Hutchinson and to the possession of MDMA and stanozolol. He also pleaded guilty to possessing 10g of heroin and possessing with intent to supply a further 38g.
Meanwhile, Hutchinson pleaded guilty to possession of heroin and possession with intent to supply the same drug on the basis that he was going to share 3.5g with a friend on a ‘not for profit’ basis and that he would keep the other half for personal use.
Crown Advocate Conrad Yates, prosecuting, told the court that the defendants had a string of previous convictions, and that although both were involved in trafficking class A drugs, Higgins was ‘higher up the chain’ than his co-accused.
He added that as there were no ‘exceptional’ mitigating factors for either man, the Crown was seeking a custodial sentence for both.
Advocate Niall MacDonald, defending Higgins, said that his client had a good employment record as a plumber, that he was very remorseful and that he was not a ‘sophisticated criminal high up in the supply chain’.
Advocate James Bell, defending Hutchinson, said his client had been very co-operative with police and that because he was going to share the drugs with a friend, he should be considered a ‘social supplier’.
Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith, sitting with Jurats Robert Kerley, Paul Nicolle, Collette Crill, Geoffrey Grime and Michael Liston, said that it was a ‘tragedy’ for Higgins’s family that he had become involved in commercial drug dealing and that the court could not accept that his co-defendant was involved in ‘social supply’.
Following the sentencing, Gerard Gardner, president of the Jersey Squash and Racketball Club, told the JEP that he was ‘deeply shocked’ by the incident.
‘We pride ourselves on offering a safe and healthy environment to all our members and their families and we are extremely distressed by the dreadful breach of our trust which took place,’ he said.
User concealed his drugs in birthday card
A DRUG user who tried to smuggle heroin into Jersey inside a birthday card has been jailed for more than 4½ years.
Mark Lee Hollings (40), a serial criminal who has 50 previous convictions and is currently awaiting sentencing in the UK for supplying cocaine, hid £3,000 worth of the drug under a ‘birthday boy’ badge.
But his plot to import the drugs for his personal use and to sell to friends was foiled when Customs officers intercepted the package, the Royal Court heard yesterday.
The parcel, which had been sent to a St Helier address, was opened by Customs officials, who discovered the small wrapped packages containing a total of 3.01g of heroin.
A substitute package with ultraviolet marker powder applied to the contents was subsequently sent to the address. On 7 October last year, Hollings was seen entering the address and taking the parcel. He was then arrested.
Crown Advocate Richard Pedley said: ‘The “birthday boy” badge which had been inside the package was subsequently found on him.
Advocate Pedley said that Hollings, who has 50 previous convictions for 136 offences, of which 20 were drugs-related, planned to sell some of the drugs.
Hollings, who lives in the UK and regularly visits the Island to see his daughter, pleaded guilty to importation as well as a further charge of driving without insurance.
Advocate Pierre Landick, defending, argued that the amount of drugs found was small and that they were unlikely to be sold on because of Hollings’s long-running addiction.
He said: ‘My submission is that this is not a trafficking offence committed to sell on to other people. He did not have any intention of selling on any of the drugs.
‘Mr Hollings had a bad habit and said that what he had would not have lasted him long.’
Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith accepted the submission of the prosecution and sentenced the Blackburn-born defendant to four years and six months for the drugs importation charge and to a further month for the charge of driving without insurance.
‘It is clear that he is deeply embedded in organised crime’
Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith
He said: ‘He has been dealt with by virtually all available options by the court. In our view, there is very little mitigation for the defendant and he has shown no remorse. It is clear that he is deeply embedded in organised crime.’
The court ordered that the drugs be destroyed.
The Jurats sitting were Robert Kerley, Paul Nicolle, Collette Crill, Geoffrey Grime and Michael Liston.
A CONVICTED drugs trafficker who smuggled dozens of ecstasy pills into Jersey Live has been spared jail.
On 31 August last year Thomas Oliver Howard (22) was stopped by police soon after he entered the Royal Jersey Showground in Trinity on the final day of the music festival.
After being searched on site, the then 21-year-old was handcuffed and taken to police headquarters for a strip search.
At the station Howard removed a plastic bag from his underwear which contained 45 ecstasy tablets with a street value of slightly over £1,100. The defendant refused to say where he had obtained the class A drugs or what he was going to do with them at the festival.
However, yesterday Howard was sentenced by the Superior Number of Royal Court after previously pleading guilty to possessing the tablets with intent to supply them, on the basis that he was going to exchange them for a festival ticket.
Crown Advocate Emma Hollywood, prosecuting, said that by taking the tablets into Jersey Live, the defendant had been ‘actively involved in the supply of dangerous drugs to the public’.
Advocate Hollywood told the court that by committing the offence, Howard was also in breach of a probation order issued after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to import heroin into the Island in November 2012. She added that at the time there were ‘exceptional circumstances’ which prevented him from being jailed, but that on this occasion Howard did not benefit from the same mitigation. Because of this, the Crown was seeking a custodial sentence. Advocate Lucy Marks, defending, told the court that on the day that her client committed the crime, it had been the anniversary of his ex-girlfriend’s death and that Howard had been managing ‘destructive thoughts’ in the run-up to the incident.
‘He was not the organiser, nor did he finance the juncture. He was involved last minute for a short duration and his role was limited.’
Advocate Marks urged the court not to impose a custodial sentence, but to give Howard a ‘second chance’.
‘He was not the organiser, nor did he finance the juncture. He was involved for a short duration’
Defence advocate
Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith, sitting with Jurats Robert Kerley, Paul Nicolle, Collette Crill, Geoffrey Grime and Michael Liston, said that the defendant had committed a ‘very serious offence’ and that many teenagers had been at risk from coming into contact with a harmful drug at the festival.
Commissioner Clyde-Smith added that the defendant had ‘exhausted the mercy of the court’ and that if he were to come back again he would almost certainly face a prison sentence. Howard was given a 456-hour community service order and was put on probation for two years.
