Man turned to selling cocaine to pay debts

COURT: Electrician caught red-handed with quarter of a kilo of Class A substance

An electrician turned drug dealer for a serious organised crime gang because he wanted to hide his cocaine habit from his parents.

Father-of-one David Kiddy had to confess what he had been doing after he was caught red-handed with £25,000 worth of the Class A drug.

Kiddy said he was “embarrassed and ashamed” that he had let his family down as he was jailed for a year at Perth Sheriff Court.

The court was told Kiddy was caught during a surveillance operation which led to another man, Morris Ferrie, being jailed for 32 months.

Kiddy was caught during a drugs exchange with Ferrie and his DNA was found on the packaging around the cocaine. Ferrie said he got involved because he needed money for a knee replacement operation.

Sheriff Gillian Wade told Kiddy, who has no previous convictions: “Your dramatic rise into the world of criminality is inevitably going to result in a custodial sentence.

“There was much to be said to your credit up to this point, but for an offence of this magnitude – where serious organised crime is involved – it has to attract a custodial sentence.”

Solicitor David Holmes, defending, said: “He had accumulated a debt, having taken cocaine. Instead of seeking help for that from his parents he felt embarrassed and did not want it known the position he was in.

He was given this as an option of writing off the debt. He initially refused but then agreed. He made a statement that his family did not deserve what he brought upon them.

“He has written to his mother from prison to apologise and promise he will never be in court again. His parents did not anticipate he would ever bring this sort of trouble on himself.”

Kiddy, 26, Main Street, Invergowrie, admitted being concerned in the supply of cocaine on Canal Street, Perth, on July 20.

Depute fiscal John Malpass said: “A surveillance operation was authorised and Mr Ferrie was observed as a passenger in a vehicle driven by Mr Kiddy and it was suspected a drug transaction was taking place.”

Mr Malpass said the bag contained nearly a quarter of a kilo of cocaine with a potential street value of £24,900.

Ferrie, 51, had earlier been jailed for 32 months after the same court heard about his role in the organised crime gang’s bid to flood Perth with the Class A drug.

The arthritic drug dealer told the court he joined the gang because he was fed-up waiting for a knee replacement operation on the NHS.

He claimed he was in pain from arthritis and had been told he would have to wait up to 15 years to have the operation to replace both knees.

He told the court he tried to dull the pain with alcohol before turning to cocaine and eventually got hooked into an organised crime gang. Mr Malpass told the court that the haul of cocaine led to further large seizures of drugs around Tayside which were linked to the same gang’s operation.

“He was given this as an option of writing off the debt. SOLICITOR DAVID HOLMES

Morris Ferrie, above, was jailed for 32 months for his part in the operation, with electrician David Kiddy also jailed.