Wholesale trafficking - hundreds of thousands of dollars and kilograms of meth -sentence- 8.5 years

Alan Phillips of our office acted for his client who was sentenced in the Supreme Court of Queensland by Her Honour Justice Muir in October 2023. The client was originally charged with trafficking dangerous drugs over a 6.5 month period. The allegations were primarily based off phone downloads from the client's phone.

Messages were located in encrypted applications Signal and Threema which on the Crown case, showed that the defendant was a wholesale drug trafficker, and at certain times paid his supplier $500,000.00 over a week period from drug sales. He was alleged to be selling multiple kilograms of methamphetamine on a very regular basis.

The defendant was alleged to have had debts of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and assisted in a larger syndicate. He had his own workers and was arrested with a rifle, 252.8g of pure methylamphetamine amongst other items.

The allegations were not accepted. Following submissions by Alan Phillips, the alleged period of the trafficking was reduced to 2 weeks as opposed to 6.5 months. The debts owed and much of the serious allegations about his role within the syndicate were removed from the allegations. The sentencing basis was ultimately that he sold approximately 2 kilograms of methamphetamine over 14 days. The client had previously received a sentence of imprisonment from the Supreme Court for drug offences, and was a middle aged man.

He had serious health issues for which a report was commissioned, and tendered at Court. The report demonstrated his time in custody would be harder than for the average prisoner.

James Wallace of Counsel was briefed. Submissions were made and the defendant was sentenced to 8.5 years imprisonment, to be eligible for parole after 2 years and 2 months (8 months less than the usual 'third').

As a result of the extensive negotiations by Alan Phillips leading up to sentence, the defendant was saved from a potential sentence in the order of 12-13 years imprisonment, which would have triggered a serious violent offence declaration requiring the defendant to serve 80% of that sentence prior to being eligible for parole. He therefore was saved some 8 years or so of actual custody.

Trafficking in dangerous drugs now carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.