Europe - Dope smoker turned to dealing to pay the bills

[Hash]

Guernsey - Stuart Mauger turned to drug trafficking to try to clear £10,000 of debt.

From his bedroom in his mother’s St Martin’s house, the 21-year-old tried to get some extra cash by becoming a cannabis supplier.

Needing to pay off loans, credit card bills and the hire purchase on his motorbike, Mauger moved from cannabis smoker to dealer.

He also wanted money to pay for the machine to be repaired and so he sold former school friend Jason Duncombe 135g of resin for more than £1,000.

Duncombe went to Mauger’s house at Sausmarez Mill on the evening of 5 May. He left in a car with friends a bit later. But police stopped it at Camps du Moulin and Duncombe was searched, during which two lumps of cannabis, some fragments and some foil were found.

Officers then raided Mauger’s room, in which they discovered cash on the bed totalling £1,126, a lump of cannabis weighing about 30g, scales, foil and cutting equipment. In a cabinet there was a grater and three other lumps of cannabis totalling more than 50g.

In the Royal Court, Mauger, who denied the charges, was yesterday convicted of supplying the cannabis to Duncombe and also possession with intent to supply the remainder in his bedroom. He admitted a further charge of possession.

Duncombe, of The Bungalow, Vazon Coast Road, Castel, has already pleaded guilty to possessing the cannabis sold to him by Mauger with the intent to supply it.

Mauger told the court that earlier that day he had bought 2oz of cannabis from an Englishman, who was named in court, for £200 which was half the local prices.

Duncombe had just come round for a chat and a smoke from a bong but he was not sold drugs.

But Crown Advocate Graeme McKerrell said certain facts proved that Mauger had supplied Duncombe:

* Duncombe was at Mauger’s just before being arrested with the drugs.

* Forensic tests showed one of Duncombe’s cannabis lumps and one of Mauger’s were from the same block of resin.

* The amount of cash was consistent with the street price for the amount of drugs found on Duncombe.

* If he did get the drugs from the English supplier at that price, then he could make a quick profit.

* The paraphernalia found in Mauger’s bedroom was consistent with that of a supplier.

* Advocate McKerrell said that there was too much cannabis in the bedroom for personal use.
But Advocate Mark Dunster, defending, said that the prosecution case was based entirely on coincidence and inference:

* There was no surprise that Duncombe, an old friend, should go round for a chat.

* The reason the two bits of drug matched was because they had both bought from the same supplier, who was known to police and Customs. There were traces of cannabis in the supplier’s room when police raided it and the composition of a white sticky substance found on both Duncombe’s and Mauger’s cannabis matched that of the sticky plaster found in the supplier’s bin.

* There were no massive sums of money and Duncombe’s fingerprints were not found on the cash.

* The paraphernalia and drugs were just for personal use.
After being found guilty unanimously on both counts, Mauger was remanded in custody until sentencing, for which no date was fixed. A social enquiry report was commissioned and there will be investigations into the benefits that Duncombe and Mauger derived from drug trafficking.



Source: This Is Guernsey
Copyright: 9/2/2005 Guiton Group.
Contact: http://www.thisisguernsey.com/code/s...clude=feedback
Website: http://www.thisisguernsey.com/section/News.html