Former lawyer jailed for drugs, weapons offences

A FORMER criminal lawyer was yesterday jailed for more than eight years for drug trafficking and 21 other drugs and weapons offences.

The former solicitor for high-profile Southport criminal law firm Gatenby Lawyers, Briana Christine Ioannides, pleaded guilty in the Brisbane Supreme Court to drug trafficking and 21 drugs and weapons charges.

Ioannides, 30, was sentenced to eight-and- a-half years’ imprisonment with a parole eligibility date after two years and six months on February

20, 2021, having already served eight months.

In her sentencing, Justice Debra Mullins said that Ioannides (pictured) had “more promise than most for getting back on the straight and narrow” and endorsed her goal to study a diploma of community services. She said Ioannides exemplified what happens when a young person with a “promising career” becomes addicted to drugs.

“You allowed your life to get out of control and the result is that you are being sentenced today for over 40 offences.” Crown Prosecutor Barrister Judy Geary said police found large amount of drugs for “commercial use” at her home with co-offender and then boyfriend Daniel White-Mayne in 2015 which included methamphetamine, MDMA pure heroine, gross-steroid drugs and butanediol which metabolises as GHB.

Police also found cash, a shotgun and paraphernalia associated with drugs relating to summary charges.