Avoided 10 years imprisonment for wholesale trafficking

Alan Phillips of our office instructed Scott Lynch of counsel for his client at sentence before the Supreme Court of Queensland in July 2026.

His client was initially indicted on trafficking wholesale levels of methamphetamine over a 7-month period. Following a review of the brief of evidence, Alan Phillips sent detailed submissions to the prosecuting office, which ultimately led to the reduction of the trafficking period to 7 weeks. The quantities sold were also reduced from multiple ounces at a time, to up to a single ounce per transaction.

At the time of the offending, he was on 7 years parole for a previous commercial possession of drugs. He had two previous convictions for trafficking methamphetamine.

Reports were collated which set out his client's background and difficulties throughout his life. The facts were fine tuned to accurately reflect the evidence.

At sentence, the Crown sought a sentence of 10 to 12 years imprisonment. A sentence of 10 or more years for trafficking would have resulted in the defendant being required to serve 80% of the head sentence in actual custody.

After hearing submissions, the presiding Judge declined to do so and instead sentenced our client to 9 years imprisonment. This saved our client from serving a further 7 years in actual custody.