Charlotte Herd admitted supplying cocaine to two people, as well as the class B drug methylphenidate and the class C drug diazepam. She also pleaded guilty to possession of MDMA, methylphenidate and £690 from drug sales, which were found when police searched her address in May last year.
The 23-year-old was caught after the mobile phones belonging to the two people were analysed in 2019. In messages, Herd described the cocaine on offer as ‘dynamite’ and ‘rocket fuel’.
She appeared before the Royal Court yesterday, when she was also sentenced for resisting arrest in May this year when she kicked an officer in the groin and used offensive language.
This occurred while she was on police bail for unrelated matters, and on Royal Court bail for the drug offences.
Crown Advocate Matthew Maletroit, prosecuting, said that Herd had five previous convictions for assaulting police officers.
He said: ‘It is clear from telecommunications evidence that she played a significant role in the supply of substances, activity which is dangerous, which ruins lives, which has an incredibly damaging impact on the local community.’
Advocate Maletroit added that she had negotiated the sale, made arrangements and physically handed over the drugs in exchange for cash. He said that the methylphenidate tablets had a street value of £185 and the MDMA powder had a street value of between £100 to £120.
He suggested a total sentence of four years, six months and one week for the combined offences.
However, Advocate Allana Binnie, defending, argued that the amount of drugs involved was small and Herd was supplying on behalf of another man she was with at the time.
She said: ‘My client was not the brains or finance behind the operation.
‘We are dealing with extremely small amounts of drugs for just two people,’ she added, for which Herd received ‘no significant financial benefit’.
She said her client was in a relationship at the time and her compliance in the drug offences was based on this.
Advocate Binnie added: ‘She makes no excuses for the way she behaved on this occasion.’
She argued that the sentence the prosecution was arguing for was too long and that a community-based order may be more appropriate.
‘The threats, pressure and violence that my client was under was not instigated by the drugs world but by the relationship,’ she said.
The Bailiff ,Timothy Le Cocq, presiding, said the court did not think it was possible to avoid a custodial sentence – Herd had already been remanded in custody for three months after she resisted arrest. He called the offences a ‘serious example of offending and of street supply’.
However, he noted that the court was encouraged by Herd indicating she wished to address the issues which underpinned the offending.
In total, Herd was sentenced for two counts of offering to supply a controlled drug, three counts of supplying a controlled drug, two counts of possessing a controlled drug and one count of possessing or controlling criminal property, and one count of resisting arrest.
Jurats Rozanne Thomas, Jane Ronge and Robert Christensen were sitting.
