By Orlando Crowcroft
THERE’S an anecdote that I have repeated a number of times over the past 18 months and always intended to use in an article for the JEP.
A friend of mine was in the Magistrate’s Court a while back on a driving offence and got chatting – as you do – to another chap who was waiting in line. He asked what he was in for and he said cannabis. “How much did you have?” my friend asked.
“Ah, about four grams,” he replied.
“Are you kidding?” my friend said. “I have more than that on me now!”
My friend – who I hope won’t mind me sharing this – is prescribed cannabis perfectly legally.
Indeed, he is prescribed so much that he struggles to get through it.
This chap in the Mags Court probably got a ticking off from the judge, and almost certainly a fine.
Either way, he will now have a criminal record.
I thought of this again as I read about the Deputy Bailiff, Robert MacRae, calling out Jersey’s drug sentencing policy for what it is: absolute madness.
He didn’t use those words – the man is a judge, after all – but in branding the prosecution starting point for convicting a 26-year-old for a series of relatively minor drugs offences (seven years), Mr Macrae said that the sentence was “too long”.
The four years that Fraser David Julian Mallet ultimately received is “too long” as well.
Mallet will now spend at least two years as a guest of HMP La Moye for dealing cannabis, a drug which – let us not forget – half the Island seems to be smoking on a daily basis, completely legally, obtained via Jersey’s “Wild West” of cannabis clinics.
There was also some LSD, sure, but with a combined street value of £1,315, the total value of the drugs Mallet had on him was worth less than the cracked iPhone that was also seized.
How much is the conviction and subsequent locking up of this poor lad going to cost the Island?
And how much is it going to cost him? For the rest of his life, he’ll have to disclose his conviction. And good luck if he ever he wants to emigrate to America.
It’ll certainly cost more than the £1,315 he would have made if his dastardly plan hadn’t been foiled by the police, I’d imagine.
Far too many guests of HMP La Moye are there for relatively minor drugs offences, and far too much time is spent catching and convicting people for possessing and supplying cannabis.
We – and I mean, you, Jersey – need to decide whether we think cannabis is a good thing or a bad thing. If the former, just legalise it for heaven’s sake. If the latter, then stop prescribing it.
All the current situation does is allow people who are wealthy enough to pay a private clinic to prescribe them weed for anxiety to smoke, and criminalise those who are not.
And that’s not fair.
Staff exodus at Mont à L’Abbé
Regular readers will know that I have been banging on quite a bit about school deficits in recent months, much to the chagrin of the government, and I noted in my last column the worrying state of affairs at the Island’s schools that cater for students with special educational needs.
The 2025 data revealed that among the worst deficits as of April 2024 were at the Island’s special-needs schools, La Sente/ La Passarelle (£344,427.76) and Mont à l’Abbé (£566,771.58). I also noted that six members of staff had left the latter school in 2025.
But another FoI that popped into my inbox this week suggests that the situation at Mont à l’Abbé School has been going on for quite a while. Between 2021 and June 2025, 49 members of staff have left the school, with 17 departing in 2023 and 12 in 2022. These, the FoI clarifies, are not people who have moved to work at other schools, but have left government employment completely.
That is a shocking exodus, and all the more worrying given that the school caters for a vulnerable section of our society.
In response to my question earlier this month, Education Minister Robert Ward dubiously suggested that the issues at Mont à l’Abbé would be ameliorated by a new (presumably non-SEN) town primary school at Gas Place. This made no sense, obviously, but fair play to Ward for an opportunistic plug for his one-man mission to build a school that nobody wants.
And that the Island doesn’t need.
I would be interested in hearing from parents or teachers at Mont à l’Abbé – past and present – about what is really going on at the school.
Which brings me to the end of the final investigation editor’s week. It was always a bit of a silly title – although not the silliest I’ve had – but I’ve enjoyed it immensely. Thanks to all those who have reached out with gossip, scandal and otherwise. It has been enormously satisfying rattling cages and turning over tables together. Don’t be strangers, and keep fighting the good fight.
