A ‘HAPLESS’ young man who stored and delivered heroin for a dealer has escaped being jailed – despite having been caught with more than a kilo of the drug.
Expecting a prison sentence, Gareth Curtis turned up with a holdall when he appeared at Warwick Crown Court to be sentenced for possessing heroin with intent to supply it.
But instead Curtis, 21, of Bucknill Crescent, Rugby, who had pleaded guilty to the charge, was sentenced to two years in prison suspended for two years.
The judge, who said it was a ‘wholly exceptional’ course, also made him subject to a 7pm to 7am curfew for four months and ordered him to do 180 hours of unpaid work.
Prosecutor Simon Worlock said that in August last year the police were called to what was mistakenly thought to be a burglary in Moat Farm Drive, Rugby, at around 9.30pm.
As they checked the area they saw Curtis and two other men by the nearby playing field, and when officers searched them they found a bag in which there were a number of wraps of heroin.
Curtis was arrested, and when the police then went to his home, they found another bag containing just over a kilo of heroin under his bed.
Mr Worlock said police had seized a total of 1.2 kilos of heroin – with an estimated street value of £120,000.
When Curtis was interviewed he was honest about his involvement, and said he had been asked by someone he would not name to mind the drugs for him.
He said he would hand the packages back to the man, in return for which he was paid £50 a week.
David Jackson, defending, said that Curtis, who has an apprenticeship, ‘presents as somewhat hapless,’ having had no previous experience of crime.
Mr Jackson handed in a letter from Curtis’s parents, and said that a pre-sentence report put forward ‘a very constructive recommendation.’
“Immediately on arrest he told the police ‘I had it given to me to look after, and then I get a call and drop it off.’
“He is only 21 years of age, and his lack of previous convictions is unusual for a young man appearing before the court for an offence as serious as this,” added Mr Jackson.
Sentencing Curtis, Recorder Christopher Tickle told him: “Involvement with drugs is very serious, as you well appreciate, and involvement with heroin is even more serious because it is one of the most destructive drugs.
“How or why you got involved in this is hard to explain; and I accept you got involved in it haplessly.”
Recorder Tickle explained that the sentencing range set out in guidelines for such offences was between three-and-a-half and seven years immediate imprisonment.
But he told Curtis: “Every case has got to be dealt with on its own facts. You pleaded guilty, you have no previous convictions, and you are only 21 years of age and you have a very supportive family.
“I ask myself ‘what is the point of locking you up, apart from to send out the message that everyone who gets involved in heroin gets locked up?’”
And he added: “This sentence is wholly exceptional. I cannot think of another case of this sort I have dealt with when the person has left the building through the front door.”
