A FORMER associate of the gangster once dubbed ‘Britain’s Pablo Escobar’ has avoided prison after admitting to importing nearly £30,000 worth of cannabis into Jersey.
Oliver Courtenay Lucas was sentenced in the Royal Court yesterday to 180 hours of community service after pleading guilty to importing almost a kilo of cannabis resin last year.
The 39-year-old – who was once part of a failed smuggling plot led by notorious drugs baron Curtis Warren – also admitted possessing a Class A drug and damaging property while already subject to a probation order for failing to provide a breath specimen.
Crown Advocate Mark Boothman, prosecuting, said that on 5 February 2024, Lucas and another man, Curtis Aubert, met for a pint before driving to Jersey Airport.
Shortly afterwards, a Volvo driven by Lucas was seen moving around the car parks as Mr Aubert went in and out of the terminal. At one point, Mr Aubert handed a mobile phone through the car window to Lucas before returning inside.
Minutes later, Mr Aubert was arrested with another man, Evert Smallegange, who had arrived from Spain. Mr Smallegange later passed 199 pellets he had swallowed before travelling – almost a kilogram of cannabis resin, worth between £20,000 and £30,000.
Lucas admitted organising the importation for financial gain and being responsible for the onward distribution.
When police searched his flat, they also found five grams of dried magic mushrooms, and in a separate incident earlier this year, Lucas slashed the tyres of a man’s electric mountain bike with a Stanley knife.
Advocate Mike Preston, defending, said Lucas had endured a “somewhat troubled life”, explaining that his parents divorced and left the Island when he was young, leaving him to fend for himself and “fall in with the wrong crowd”.
He was jailed for five years in 2009 for his role as a junior member of the Curtis Warren gang, which plotted to smuggle £1 million of cannabis into Jersey from France by boat.
The then-23-year-old was recruited late in the conspiracy after the gang of five struggled to raise enough money to buy the drugs – an episode which, Advocate Preston said, had “blighted” his life.
In 2017, he was again jailed – this time in France – for running a trafficking network that planned to bring large quantities of cannabis and cocaine into Jersey.
Addressing the Court, Advocate Preston said Lucas had written a letter expressing remorse, had “finally realised the consequences” of his actions, and had a job offer waiting. He asked the court to consider his early guilty pleas and the ten months already spent in custody.
Commissioner William Bailhache, presiding, said the Court was “divided” on whether custody was appropriate. One Jurat pointed to Lucas’s “long criminal record” and his role as organiser of a “serious drug importation”, while another highlighted the delay since the offences and his remorse.
Commissioner Bailhache said Lucas had written a “very good letter of remorse” and described the outcome as “an extremely risky approach” by the Court, which had decided to give him a final opportunity to change.
““If one looks only at history, it would seem almost inevitable that there will be further offending. But there comes a time when you have to start reevaluating your life, and the majority of us think this is your opportunity to do it,” the Commissioner said.
“If you don’t take the chance, there will be many worse sentences coming your way in future. You are an intelligent man, and we hope to never see you in this court again – except perhaps to buy a house.”
Lucas’s existing probation order for failing to provide a specimen was revoked, and he was made subject to a new 12-month order.
Jurats Dulake and Berry were sitting.
