Teen caught speeding had £700 of drugs

A teenage cocaine dealer caught with £700-worth of the class-A drug stashed down his trousers escaped detention this week.

Nineteen-year-old Jamie McGuire, of Fincastle Place, Cowie, had been nabbed with the drug at the Linden Avenue car park in Stirling on November 10 this year.

He had admitted a charge of possessing cocaine with intent to supply to another or others under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Fiscal depute Lindsey Brooks told Stirling Sheriff Court last Wednesday: “The police had reason to speak to the accused who was inside a vehicle with two others.

“He was searched and found to have a package down the front of his trousers. It was a bag containing 20 bags of white powder.

“He told police: ‘It’s just a bit of gear for me.’”

Ms Brooks added that the substance was subsequently analysed and discovered to be cocaine with a value of £700.

McGuire also had £290.61 in cash in his jacket pocket.

McGuire made no comment when later interviewed by officers.

The court was told that the guilty plea had been accepted on the basis that the drug had been for McGuire and his pals.

But Sheriff James MacDonald pointed out that the social work report pointed to a “rather less than social” supply of the drug.

McGuire’s agent Ken Dalling insisted that there was no conflict between the Crown narrative and the accused’s position in the social work report.

Had it not been for his client speeding at a roundabout, Mr Dalling said, McGuire would not have come to attention of the police that day.

His comments to the police when he was stopped had been made out of panic, he said.

Mr Dalling however recognised that the matter was one of drug trafficking and an accused could expect a custodial term unless there were exceptional circumstances.

He insisted however that in McGuire’s case there were such circumstances “in totality.”

McGuire’s role in the matter had been that of a courier, he said, “currying favour” with someone higher up the chain.

He was young with no previous convictions and was in full-time employment earning £300 per week and had the support of his family who were in court.

A community-based disposal with the maximum of unpaid work as an alternative to custody would be suitable disposal as well as a restriction of liberty order, he said.

Sheriff MacDonald told McGuire he had been involved in “oiling the wheels of a pernicious trade.”

Nevertheless he was persuaded that he could deal with the matter through a community payback order with unpaid work as a direct alternative to custody in a Young Offenders’ Institution.

He sentenced him to 280 hours’ unpaid work.

The sheriff ordered that the unpaid work had to be completed within six months. He was also sentenced to a four-month restriction-of-liberty order confining him to his home between 7pm and 6am seven days per week, with the last month varied to run from Sunday to Friday.