Drug dealer caught after yellow-lines parking

A young drug dealer unwittingly led police to a hidden stash of cocaine in his bedroom all thanks to some dodgy parking.

Undercover police were on duty in Haverfordwest when their attention was drawn to a silver Seat parked on double yellow lines on September 27 this year.

Officers then saw a young male run out of a nearby house and jump into the waiting vehicle.

Swansea Crown Court heard that man was 20-year-old Leon Carey – a man who has previous convictions for drugs offences.

Ashanti-Jade Walton, prosecuting, said the defendant made an unprompted comment: “I’ve something I shouldn’t have”, and gestured towards his waistband – at which point the officers saw the handle of a knife.

The weapon turned out to be a hunting knife with an eight-inch blade.

Asked if he had anything else on him, the defendant said he intended to smoke a “spliff” later and officers recovered a quantity of cannabis from a trouser pocket.

Miss Walton said police then conducted a search of Carey’s nearby home, and in a wardrobe they found 20 wraps of cocaine, and eight grams of cannabis. They recovered further amounts of cocaine and cannabis from a chest of drawers in the room.

The court heard he has seven previous convictions for 17 offences including for possession of cannabis, possession of cocaine, possession of MDMA – better known as Ecstasy – and possession of a knife.

John Allchurch, for Carey, said the defendant’s mother had feared that her son was mixing with the “wrong crowd” and sent him to Hastings in East Sussex to live with his father.

However, the move did not work out and the teenager returned to Pembrokeshire where he did indeed begin to mix with the people his mother had been concerned about, and ended up involved in drugs.

Carey, of St Issell’s Avenue, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, pleaded guilty to possession of a bladed article, possession of cannabis, and possession of cocaine with intent to supply when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.

Giving the defendant a one-third discount for his guilty pleas Judge Geraint Walters sentenced Carey to 32 months’ detention, which will be served in a young offenders’ insitutuion.

Carey will serve up to one-half of that period in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.