A Deemster has issued a warning to the young people of the island about the dangers of getting involved in trafficking drugs.

Deemster Alastair Montgomerie gave the warning as he jailed a 27-year-old Douglas man for four years and 10 months for ecstasy and cocaine offences.

Connor Shearman arranged to have hundreds of ecstasy tablets sent to his home in Cooil Drive.

He pleaded guilty to two charges of production of the class A drug and two counts of possession with intent to supply. He also admitted a fifth charge of cocaine possession.

Jailing him, Deemster Montgomerie said he was pleased to see a member of the press in court for the sentencing. He said there is a growing number of Manx young people who were ’determined to wreck their lives’ by getting involved in the trafficking of class A drugs.

’This is an opportunity for me to remind the Manx public firstly of the damage that using drugs does and secondly the potential consequences to them of being caught.’

He said the courts had laid down severe penalties for those involved in trafficking class A drugs because of the ’misery, suffering and destruction’ they bring to users, their families and even communities.

Prosecutor Roger Kane told the Court of General Gaol Delivery that on September 19 last year, Customs and Excise officers intercepted a package at the Post Office containing 100 purple tablets later confirmed as MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy.

The package was addressed to the defendant’s home address and had been sent from the Netherlands.

Shearman was not at home when police searched the Cooil Drive address. They found a white powder later identified as cocaine as well as items of drugs paraphernalia.

Shearman was arrested at his place of work and during police interview, denied knowledge of the drugs and claimed someone had set him up as a grudge as he had enemies.

A further package was intercepted on September 26. This was addressed to Mr Connor S and contained four vacuum-sealed foil packets containing a total of 350.5 tablets subsequently confirmed as MDMA.

The defendant was arrested and again denied knowledge of the drugs or who ordered them.

He said the cocaine found at his home was for personal use as he had a 2-3g a day habit. But examination of his mobile phones proved he was involved in selling illicit drugs including MDMA and cocaine.

With ecstasy having a street value of between £10 and £15 a tablet, the two consignments of the pills had a street value of between £4,505 and £6,757.50. The 27.65g of cocaine had a street value of £2,765.

guilty

Shearman pleaded guilty to the five offences at his first appearance at the Court of General Gaol Delivery.

He had pleaded not guilty to a further charge of possession of cocaine with intent to supply and with the Crown offering no evidence, this count was formally dismissed by the Deemster.

Defence advocate Steve Wood: ’Here we are again - yet another young person caught up in drugs.’

He said it was surprisingly easy to order drugs through the postal system.

His client had been ’perhaps somewhat naive’, he said, as there was a ’very high chance of discovery and interception’.

Mr Wood said his client, who has a four-year-old daughter, was now clean of drugs. This was his first conviction for drug trafficking and he had never served a prison sentence before.

Jailing Shearman for four years and 10 months, Deemster Montgomerie told him: ’It is your drugs use that has landed you in court here today.

’For goodness sake never go anywhere near drugs again.’