Drug supplier 'used court delay to rebuild his life'
A man who supplied cannabis has escaped custody – partly because of the delay in bringing the case to court.
Gareth Tisdale also claimed he had used the delay in getting the case to court in turning his life around and was now committed to warning others about the perils of drugs.
Mold Crown Court heard Tisdale, 24, had stopped taking cannabis, got himself a home and had undergone charity work.
Tisdale had, through an addict support charity, obtained funding for a new programme which he had devised to educate young people.
The defendant, of Dinas, Treowen, Powys, changed his plea and admitted that between July and November, 2015, he was concerned in the supply of a quantity of cannabis.
Judge Niclas Parry told him that he had been "a serious player" as the organiser of a small group supplying harmful drugs in a part of Mid Wales that was blighted by the harm caused by drugs.
The judge said he should realise that the starting point in sentencing was 12 months with a range up to three years.
But he had pleaded guilty and the judge said he had to have regard to the fact that "we are now 17 months on" since he committed the offence, a delay, he said, that had enable events to move on significantly.
In that time he had been able to transform his life and had become a valued member of society assisting others in voluntary work, he had given up drugs and he had a home to live in.
It would, the judge said, be "utterly destructive" to put all of that to one side.
He said he regarded it as a highly unusual case and he imposed a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years.
Tisdale was placed on rehabilitation and ordered to follow a probation programme – together with a four-month curfew to keep him indoors between 6-30 pm and 6 am.
"I give you this chance because of the constructive use you have made of the last 17 months," the judge told him.
Prosecuting barrister Paulinus Barnes told how police searched two addresses in Newtown and found cannabis.
There were drugs with an estimated street value of £2,000 in one address. They were the defendant's drugs and he was the organiser – while a young woman was described as a minder and a young man was said to be a runner, doing his "dirty work".
