Meth dealer avoids jail

AS A young boy, all James Lawrence Rountree-Whitmore wanted to do was be a motocross rider and make his parents proud, a court was told.

On Friday a judge gave him a second chance at both after the 21-year-old was spared time behind bars after he was convicted of trafficking methylamphetamine.

In Toowoomba Supreme Court the Goondiwindi man pleaded guilty to trafficking a dangerous drug, and six charges of supplying a dangerous drug.

The court was told the supply offences took place while Rountree-Whitmore was on probation in April 2019, where he sold 3.9g of methylamphetamine and 7g of cannabis to five different people.

Crown prosecutor Shontelle Petrie said the trafficking took place over a nine week period between May and July in 2020 while on bail for the supply offences, involving quantities of between 0.1g and 3.5g and described as “street level” transactions multiple times a week.

“It can’t be said there was a clear hierarchy,” she said.

Defence barrister David Jones told the court his client should have learnt while on probation and bail but “unfortunately it took a trafficking charge for him to pull his socks up”.

Mr Jones said growing up all Rountree-Whitmore wanted to do was make his parents proud, and was heavily involved in motocross.

The court was told Rountree-Whitmore’s life began to take a turn once he started working on a station at 17 with other men, where from “sunset to sunrise” they would drink, and he formed an alcohol addiction which would eventually lead him to lose his job and fall in with a “bad crowd” and become addicted to meth.

“That drug use was such that he was a drug addict, he couldn’t get money to buy the drugs so he started working as the middleman … where he took the majority of the risk and his commission was paid in drugs,” he said.

“Any interest in self-preservation was eclipsed by his drug addiction.”

Mr Jones said his client was now undertaking a rehabilitation program of hard labour, working up to seven days a week fencing and labouring in the Goondiwindi area, and was supported by his parents and partner.

In convicting and sentencing Rountree-Whitmore to 200 hours community service, Justice Peter Callaghan said it was a chance to “give something back to the community for the trouble you’ve caused”.

Rountree-Whitmore was also handed a three year suspended jail sentence.