DEALER: I WAS ON DRUGS IN COURT
A TORQUAY man took heroin and ice before appearing in court this week to face drug trafficking charges arising after a car crash that killed his girlfriend.
A report from Corrections officers tabled yesterday revealed Jordan Hooper took the drugs on Tuesday soon before he fronted Geelong Magistrates’ Court.
The defendant, jailed previously for drug dealing, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to trafficking GHB and ice, and dealing in property suspected to be the proceeds of crime.
The charges came about after drugs and associated equipment were found in a car that crashed into an oncoming mobile crane on Bacchus Marsh Rd on July 20 last year.
The court was told Hooper was a passenger in that car, driven by his girlfriend, Eleanor Saporito, who died in the crash.
The couple had been operating a joint drugdealing enterprise for the previous three months, the court heard.
Magistrate Cynthia Toose ordered the Corrections report to help finalise Hooper’s sentence, and said it was disappointing to learn the man had taken drugs before his court appearance.
“If the penny hasn’t dropped with you by now that drugs have ruined your life . . . (it might never),” the magistrate said.
The sentence delivered by Ms Toose yesterday was designed to punish the man and help him rehabilitate himself, but she said it was likely the man’s last opportunity to get out of the drug business.
Hooper will spend the next three months in jail and the following year in the community on a corrections order.