I’ve just found Willy Wonka’s golden ticket!
Drug addict’s cry after stumbling across £50m cocaine haul on beach
A ‘PATHETIC’ drug user who boasted about finding ‘Willy Wonka’s golden ticket’ after stumbling across £50 million of cocaine on a beach narrowly avoided jail yesterday.
Julian Underhill, 34, tried to impress a female friend by saying the haul he left with was worth up to £30,000.
But he was soon being bombarded by requests for the drug from other people, despite asking her to tell no one else.
Word continued to spread and when it reached police, they raided his home in Caister-on-Sea, Norfolk. Prosecuting, Martin Ivory said: ‘They went into the premises and it was noted he was very nervous and sweating profusely. He asked for a glass of water which was given to him – he subsequently threw that glass of water over a bag of white powder.’
The case has echoes of the 1949 film Whisky Galore!, which tells the story of Scottish islanders who salvage 50,000 cases of whisky from a freight ship that runs aground.
About 360kg of cocaine in sealed packets washed up in holdalls on beaches at Caister-on-Sea and Hopton on February 9. It is believed they were tied to buoys off the coast by smugglers and were due to be brought to shore in small boats before strong winds and waves broke their ties and swept them ashore.
Just 8.8g of the drug, worth between £360 and £450, was found at unemployed Underhill’s home on March 3, Norwich Crown Court heard. Mr Ivory said: ‘The defendant, in his text message to another individual, said that he had effectively stumbled upon what he described as Willy Wonka’s golden ticket and that he anticipated he could be £20,000 to £30,000 better off as a result of that find.’
Andrew Oliver, defending, said his client was not a cocaine dealer and that he sent the text message only to impress a woman. He added Underhill had used or sold 150g of cocaine.
‘In my submission, he’s a somewhat pathetic heavy user of both cannabis and crack cocaine,’ he said.
Underhill, who was also found with 853g of cannabis and £5,000 cash at his home, admitted a string of charges including possessing with intent to supply Class A and Class B drugs at an earlier hearing.
Judge Maureen Bacon QC told him he had come ‘within a whisker’ of losing his freedom as she gave him a two-year jail term, suspended for two years. Underhill was also ordered to attend a drug rehabilitation course.