The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
‘Legal highs’ lead to legal low for duo
JAILED: Pair sold new psychoactive substances from shops in Perth and Angus to children as young as 13
Police restated their vow to drive the scourge of so-called legal highs from the streets of Tayside as a pair of dealers were jailed yesterday.
Liston Pacitti, 28, of Aberdeen and Paul Brocklehurst, 62, of Gwynedd, Wales, ignored local protests and police warnings and operated shops selling the drugs in Perth and Angus.
The pair took in around £2,500 per day by peddling a range of new psychoactive substances (NPS) to children as young as 13. Two users were left in comas as a result.
Superintendent Suzie Mertes said: “Along with partner agencies, we will continue to take enforcement action against those individuals who are involved in the sale of these substances in Tayside and across Scotland.
“Just because they are labelled legal does not mean...safe. There is no safe way to take NPS.”
Sentencing Pacitti and Brocklehurst to four and a half years in prison each, Sheriff Alastair Brown, said: “You demonstrated that you were lost to all human decency, placing personal profit above the health of those from whom you sought to make that profit.”
Two men who made thousands of pounds a week selling potentially lethal ‘legal highs’ from town centre shops were yesterday jailed for a total of nine years.
Liston Pacitti and Paul Brocklehurst admitted supplying “new psychoactive substances” to customers aged as young as 13. Two users were left in a coma after taking a substance known as “Psyclone”, sold by Brocklehurst.
His shop in Perth was exposed by a BBC documentary, The Deadly World of Legal Highs, and both men were repeatedly warned by police that their products were endangering their customers.
The brazen businessmen carried on regardless, with workers telling police the businesses were taking in up to £6,500 a week, branding their products “herbal research chemicals”.
A sheriff jailed the pair for four-and-ahalf years each, telling them: “You were lost to human decency, placing personal profit above the health of those from whom you sought to make that profit.”
Dundee Sheriff Court heard the substances included the notorious synthetic cannabis Spice, another called Sky High which came as a pre-rolled cigarette, and other compounds sold under names such as “White Columbian” and “Charly Sheen”. Workers told how Brocklehurst encouraged staff to give out free samples and operate a loyalty card scheme.
Two men who took Psyclone fell into comas. Depute fiscal Vicki Bell told the court: “One was admitted to the high dependency unit. He was hypothermic, had a slow heart rhythm with a rate of 38 beats per minute and his blood was acidic.”
The court was told that two other customers, aged just 14 and 13, were found heavily under the influence of substances sold by Brocklehurst’s shop.
The 13-year-old boy was rushed to hospital with heart palpitations, a racing pulse and hallucinations that the walls were moving. Forensic experts said the substances the pair sold can lead to severe physical effects and even death.
The court heard local groups had rallied against the shops run by both Pacitti and Brocklehurst. When their shops were finally raided by police, officers seized 2,644 packets of NPS and £7,853.88 in cash.
Brocklehurst, 62, of Tregarth, Gwynedd, Wales, and Pacitti, 28, of Deveron Road, Aberdeen, both pled guilty to charges of culpably and recklessly supplying new psychoactive substances to the danger of health and life.
Brocklehurst’s offences were committed between July 3 2013 and July 29 2015 at his shop, This N That, in County Place, Perth.
Pacitti’s were committed between July 3 2013 and December 7 2014 at his stores, Declaration and Evape-O-Lution in Brothock Bridge, Arbroath, and The High Life and Evape-o-Lution in High Street, Montrose.
Sheriff Alastair Brown said: “Community leaders and members of the public asked you to stop and protested against the operation of the shops. The police warned you about the effects of the substances you were selling. The local newspaper ran a series of articles about the misery you were causing. The BBC highlighted the problem in a documentary.
“You thumbed your noses at them all. “It is perfectly clear that you were exploiting, cynically and with no regard for the effects on your customers or the wider community, what you thought was a gap in the law in order to make significant amounts of money. But you were wrong.”