Judge gives Telford drug addict a final chance

Kiefer Brookes had faced being sent to prison for being in possession of drugs just two months into a suspended sentence imposed earlier this year for drug dealing.

But, at Shrewsbury Crown Court yesterday, Judge Jim Tindal said he would give Brookes 'one last opportunity' after hearing of the defendant's progress in tackling his cocaine habit.

He told Brookes that it was plain the defendant had a drugs problem, but recent tests for Class A drugs had all been negative.

Judge Tindal said he accepted Brookes was relying on cannabis to help him get through the process, but said the defendant now had to be get himself free of the Class B drug.

Brookes was given a conditional discharge for two years and ordered to pay £100 costs having admitted a charge of possession of cannabis.

Mr Neil Ahuja, prosecuting, said the defendant was found in possession of a wrap of cannabis when he was seen by officers in Tadorna Drive, Brookside, on March 5 this year.

In January Brookes, of Summer Crescent, Wrockwardine Wood, had been given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, 100 hours unpaid work and made subject to a drug rehabilitation programme.

The court had heard that Brookes' Vauxhall Astra was stopped by police in November, 2015, when 14 small bags of cocaine and 27 bags of cannabis, with an estimated value of £800, were recovered. Three phones were also seized and a further mobile phone at his home address. Two months later – on January 29 last year – Brookes was linked to a stash of cannabis found in sheds at a house in Donnington.

When he was sentenced by Judge Tindal in January this year the court heard that Brookes had moved into low-scale dealing to fund his cocaine habit.