Ice chief has jail term cut

THE leader of a Cairns ice syndicate has avoided spending at least eight years in jail because Justice James Henry said the case took too long to be finalised.

Instead Anthony Peter Wainscott will sit in prison for at least 4½ years for trafficking a significant amount of methylamphetamines into the region.

The Cairns Supreme Court heard Wainscott had been trafficking at a wholesale level, dealing in large amounts of ice and made more than $85,000 in profit.

“What you engaged in went far beyond what was necessary to support your habit,” Justice Henry said.

“You were obviously in for the money.”

Justice Henry said, in handing out the nine-year jail term, the evidence against Wain- it scott was mainly from phone taps. Cairns police also intercepted a package at Australia Post, which had been posted to Wainscott’s address, containing more than 200 grams of ice worth at least $65,000 on the street.

The father of one pleaded guilty to 14 charges including dealing ice in Cairns over eight months. He was arrested in November 2016.

Justice Henry said if the case had been dealt with in the courts in a more timely manner the sentence may have been 10 years jail, meaning Wainscott would have spent at least eight years behind bars.

However, in the last two years he had straightened out his life and Justice Henry said that had to be taken into consideration.

editorial@cairnspost.com.au facebook.com/TheCairnsPost www.cairnspost.com.au twitter.com/TheCairnsPost