Man snared with drugs haul ordered to hand over cash
A “naive” man who stored thousands of pounds of drugs and was lucky not to be jailed has been slapped with a confiscation order.
Colin O’Neill, 55, was caught with £5,000 of cannabis and Etizolam when police searched his house and his former partner’s property.
Officers recovered 17 bars of cannabis resin and a total of 17,000 pills during the raid in February 2019.
O’Neill, of Whitehaugh Terrace in Paisley, admitted being concerned in the supply of the Class-B and Class-C drugs following the discovery of the substances in properties in Aurs Crescent, Barrhead, and Mallots View, in Newton Mearns on February 21, 2019
Paisley Sheriff Court heard that as well as the drugs, officers found other items linking him to drug dealing.
Procurator fiscal depute Dana Barclay told the court: “In relation to the cannabis recovered, a total of 17 individually-wrapped bars of brown material were recovered.
“These can be bought and sold in 100g bars, which can be sold for £150 each and had a total value of £3,000.
“In relation to the Etizolam tablets, 17,000 of these were recovered.
“The total value of these was £2,040.
“The drugs were recovered as well as various bank statements, passports and mobile phones.”
At a Proceeds of Crime hearing, Sheriff Lindsay Kooner ordered a confiscation order of £1,529.49.
Last month we told how O’Neill’s defence agent told the court his client had been naive and had been vulnerable due to his issues with alcohol.
He told the court O’Neill had not actually been involved in selling the drugs, but had been convinced to store them at his home in return for access to cannabis.
He said: “He acknowledges his guilt for getting involved.
“He got involved by letting drugs be kept in his home.
“He was involved in storing items and was paid in small amounts of cannabis and did not make any money from this.
“He tells me that his issues with alcohol and drugs played a part into his descent into this.”
At that point, Sheriff Eoin McGinty told O’Neill the quantity of the drugs found meant he could have been sent to prison, no matter what his involvement was.
He added: “This is a case which does pass the custody threshold, but I can only impose that sentence if there is no direct alternative to custody and if that sentence is appropriate.
“Given the timing of your guilty pleas, I can deal with this in a way which means that custody does not have to be the only option.”
O’Neill was placed under supervision for 18 months and ordered to carry out 180 hours of unpaid work.
He was also placed on a Restriction of Liberty order for three months.
He was involved in storing items and was paid in small amounts of cannabis and did not make money