Trafficker sent to jail

A CHRONIC addict who used drugs up to 15 times a day has been sentenced for his role in a trafficking operation that brought more than half a kilogram of heroin to Cairns during a six-month period in 2019.

Forty-year-old Clifton Beach man Wade Dunbar Wigram pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in Cairns Supreme Court before Justice Peter Applegarth on Friday.

Crown prosecutor Rachel Boivin told the court Wigram was head of a syndicate that flew heroin from capital cities into Cairns before dividing bulk quantities into 0.07g to 0.09g packets and selling them on the street for $100 each.

“The defendant was moving wholesale amounts of heroin, but also selling prescription medication for significant profit, alongside the heroin trafficking,” she said.

But despite smuggling up to 560g into Cairns, massive heroin habits meant half of the trafficked total was consumed.

Defence barrister James Godbolt told the court little profit was made through drugs sales.

“Bank records show there was no money saved, no wealth was generated; the business was purely devoted to sustaining my client’s (personal) addiction – that’s not to diminish the seriousness of the conduct or the quantity involved,” he said.

“He was using approximately five grams a day and on 15 or more occasions a day.”

Wigram wept in the dock as Mr Godbolt described his client’s history of foster homes, an upbringing by alcoholic parents and horrific sexual abuse at the hands of a scout leader and brother at a boarding school in Lismore, NSW.

“It’s clear that he was very seriously and systematically sexually abused and by the age of about 15, he was largely fending for himself,” Mr Godbolt told the court.

“I think it’s fair to say that Mr Wigram’s life has been very heavily damaged by (the) abuse he suffered as a child.”

Justice Applegarth noted an early plea of guilty, drug courses undertaken while on remand and plans to enter a residential rehab program at Banyan House in the Northern Territory when released.

Wigram was sentenced to 8.5 years imprisonment, to be eligible for parole on June 11, 2022, after already serving 666 days.