Sobbing dealer given nine-year term in jail

A BABY-FACED drug pusher who continued to traffic drugs while behind bars has been jailed for nine years.

Aaron Richard Cowell sobbed in the dock of the Brisbane Supreme Court yesterday as his sentence was delivered.

Justice Martin Burns said even though he had turned his life around while on bail, his criminal behaviour warranted a lengthy jail term.

The court heard the 25year-old netted more than $100,000 over just seven months in 2015 and ’16 through the sale of wholesale quantities of drugs, including ice, cocaine, MDMA and cannabis.

Police also located up to $200,000 worth of drugs during searches of his north Brisbane home, car and buried in a box at an associate’s property. Justice Burns said Cowell’s drug trafficking revealed a “disturbing level of sophistication”.

“The use of an ultraviolet pen to hide your records is perhaps the most prominent of those features,” he said.

The court heard he used it to write tick sheets of what was owed to him by customers on walls inside his home to avoid detection.

Justice Burns said he also continued to deal large quantities of drugs after he came to the attention of police.