Paul Duffy (38) told a series of lies about the drugs until eventually pleading guilty to possession with intent to supply, the Superior Number of the Royal Court heard.
The police discovered four boxes of the potent painkiller oxycodone, containing a total of 196 capsules, at Duffy’s home in St Peter on 20 February.
The capsules, the court was told, could have been sold for £10 each.
They also found a vape pen containing a small amount of liquid THC – one of the compounds found in cannabis resin. Duffy said he had been prescribed oxycodone by his GP in Glasgow but Crown Advocate Matthew Maletroit, prosecuting, said: ‘There were no prescription labels on the boxes. He said he had taken them off. He didn’t know why.
‘He was unable to remember the name and address of the GP in Glasgow or the name of the surgery.’
Investigators eventually found a surgery in Glasgow where Duffy had been treated but they had never prescribed oxycodone to the defendant, the court heard.
Advocate Maletroit added that Duffy claimed he was ‘stockpiling them for his own use’ and that he was ‘going to sell one third of them to a close circle of friends’.
The court heard that Duffy had previous convictions for drug offences in Scotland and Jersey and that he was at ‘a high risk of reconviction.’ The prosecution recommended a five-year jail term.
Advocate Michael Haines, defending, said: ‘We are not concerned with hundreds of thousands of pounds. These had a street value of £1,960, which is very low in context.
‘There are no unaccounted for large sums of money. There are no suspiciously large sums passing through the same bank account.’
The advocate said that Duffy did have back pains and also suffered from epilepsy and asthma, but due to his previous convictions doctors would only prescribe low levels of painkillers.
‘What the defendant was trying to do was to take matters into his own hands and source his own pain relief.’
He said Duffy accepted what he did was wrong and had written a letter of remorse. ‘It is a sincere letter,’ he said. ‘The defendant accepts his past failings.’
Delivering the court’s sentence, Deputy Bailiff Robert MacRae, said the Jurats accepted Duffy’s guilty plea, letter of remorse, good employment record and letters of support from his parents and ex-partner.
But he added: ‘You were prepared to sell class A drugs. The offence is so serious that only a significant custodial sentence is possible.’
Duffy was sentenced to four years for possessing the class A drug with intent to supply, and received a six-month sentence for possession of THC to run concurrently.
Jurats Anthony Olsen, Roxanne Thomas and Elizabeth Dulake were sitting.
