Dealer’s texts led police to crack drug enterprise

STEVEN Michael Barton was hot on the radar of police when his drug trafficking network was uncovered.

Caught with 13 grams of methylamphetamine, 30 MDMA tablets, $12,000 in cash and a cache of stolen guns over a two-year crime spree, Barton will now spend the next seven months behind bars.

The Toowoomba Supreme Court heard that Barton was on parole for a number of drugs and weapons offences when detectives busted the “unsophisticated” suburban Toowoomba drug business.

Crown prosecutor David Nardone told the court messages on the 29-year-old’s mobile phone in March, 2017 halted his trafficking operation, but the beginning of the end for Barton’s plans came in August 2016 when police first caught whiff of his illegal activities.

That first search of his home located 1.9 grams of meth, stolen shotguns and other drug use related items.

Just a month later, an anonymous tip-off saw police locate 13 grams of methylamphetamine that Barton attempted to hide from officers in a Tupperware box and 30 MDMA tablets.

Six months after that, the incriminating texts led detectives to crack his criminal enterprise.

“(The texts) revealed an operating trafficking business,” Mr Nardone said.

“It appeared he had supplied to 20 customers at street level, and occasionally above that, on 32 occasions.”

Barton’s barrister David Jones said the former truckie’s drug running was losing him money as he used his supply to feed his own habit.

“If anybody now ever needed a poster boy as to why you shouldn’t try ice, that same man with his head down in the dock is single, he’s a prisoner, he doesn’t own his own home and he has no money in the bank.”

Justice Debra Mullins sentenced Barton to a five-year jail term, but ordered that a parole release date of March 23, 2019 be fixed.