Three jailed over trip with drugs and fake cash at height of lockdown
THREE men from Bristol have been jailed after they drove to Plymouth at the height of the first Covid lockdown, with wads of counterfeit £50 notes and drugs.
The three were pulled over by police suspicious at what they were doing driving around Plymouth, and they gave different reasons why they had travelled two hours and 122 miles from Bristol, on April 23, 2020 – just a month after lockdown was called and when people were only allowed out for an hour for exercise.
Plymouth Crown Court heard the three had a total of 26 fake £50 notes and cannabis.
Martin Lawrence, 23, from Sunnybank, Speedwell, and Daniel King, 24, of Hillside Road, Kingswood, had earlier pleaded guilty to carrying counterfeit cash and were jailed for 12 months and 18 months respectively.
Martin’s brother Michael Lawrence, also 23 and also of Sunnybank in Speedwell, had pleaded not guilty, so his case went to trial.
He claimed they were making the road trip to go to a party.
But King had told police they were going to a shop in Plymouth – though was at a loss to explain which one.
And Martin Lawrence said his brother and their friend had picked him up in Bristol and they had gone to get Caribbean food in the city.
Recorder Tim Kenefick noted that Lawrence had 10 previous convictions for 22 offences including a conviction for possession of counterfeit currency in 2017. On that occasion he was handed an eight-month jail sentence.
Lawrence was found guilty and Mr Kenefick, in sentencing Michael Lawrence, noted how his brother was the driver with King in the back seat and that the officers found 24 fake £50 notes under the driver’s seat, with further notes hidden in King’s trousers and the two notes in Lawrence’s pocket.
He said that in total police found £2,300 worth of fake £50 notes.
Mr Kenefick accepted that Lawrence’s brother Martin had passed the larger bundle to him to hide, but that Lawrence threw it back, leaving his brother to shove the dodgy cash under his seat.
He also accepted that the evidence from his brother’s phone, and his brother’s confession, underscored that it was his brother who bought the counterfeit money.
However, he highlighted that because his brother and King had pleaded guilty, they were handed discounted sentences of 12 and 18 months respectively, King receiving a longer sentence because he also had a previous conviction of possessing counterfeit money.
As a result he passed a sentence of 18 months on Michael Lawrence, and ordered him to pay the victim impact surcharge of £156. In addition Mr Kenefick ordered the counterfeit money be forfeited and destroyed.