A MAN who tried to import 57.15g of cocaine inside hollowed out candles has been jailed for more than three years.
In the summer of 2024, Benjamin Jake Bartlett-Noble (24) ordered a parcel containing three candles to be sent by special delivery to his home address in St Helier.
The parcel – addressed to a fictional woman named Sue Cooper – was then intercepted on 22 July by Jersey Customs and Immigration Service, the Royal Court heard.
It was later revealed that the parcel was sent from an address only ten minutes away from Bartlett-Noble’s home address in Stockport, Manchester.
During the Royal Court hearing yesterday, Crown Advocate Luke Sette, prosecuting, said that “upon removing the wrappings from one of the packages, the officer observed a candle, with the centre hollowed out, and a tea light placed in the cavity”.
He added: “Underneath the tea light was a blue plastic bag. This plastic bag contained a clingfilm-wrapped package, within which was a further blue plastic bag containing white powder.”
The two packages, he added, were found to contain a total of 57.15 grams at an approximate street value of between £8,600 to £14,300.
Advocate Sette noted that tracking data provided by Jersey Post indicated two earlier failed delivery attempts on 8 July and 10 July respectively.
While being interview, Bartlett-Noble suggested he had been “stitched up”.
The 24-year-old was subsequently bailed while the investigation continued and attempted to flee, before eventually being arrested by Devon and Cornwall Police on 31 January 2026 and brought back to the Island, where he entered not guilty pleas at the Magistrates Court.
However, he later pleaded guilty to a single count of being concerned in the postal importation of cocaine.
Advocate Mark Boothman, defending, said his client was “motivated to put this episode behind him” and “move on positively” with his life after spending a total of 96 days in custody on remand.
Bartlett-Noble was described as a “hard-working, trustworthy” young man who “demonstrates great kindness to others”.
It was argued he played a “very limited role” in the drug trafficking and would have stood to benefit “virtually nothing” from the importation of “relatively low purity” cocaine.
Referring to Advocate Sette’s suggestion of a minimum term of imprisonment of nine years, he asked that the court “show a degree of mercy” and “reduce the conclusion of the Crown”.
Commissioner Alan Binnington, presiding, said the defendant fell to be sentenced on his “basis of plea”, namely that he was not expecting to receive any monetary payment and only “suspected” the package to contain drugs.
Delivering the court’s sentence, he handed Bartlett-Noble a total sentence of three years and four months imprisonment, and also ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the drugs seized.
