Shropshire Star

Telford drug dealer restrained in dock after guilty verdict

A Telford drug dealer had to be restrained by four security guards in the dock after being found guilty of possession with intent to supply heroin and crack cocaine.

Published

Takudzwa Kumire, 20, was convicted by a jury after Shrewsbury Crown Court heard he was found with 12 wraps of the class A drugs in a car in Woodside, Telford, in the early hours of July 16 last year.

When Judge Anthony Lowe told Kumire, of Burford, Woodside, he would stay behind bars until his sentencing on October 2, he asked the judge if he would reconsider to allow him to spend the time with his mother.

He said: “I’ve got no need to run away. Just let me be with my family.”

When this was refused Kumire became increasingly agitated and resisted the security guards’ attempts to handcuff him, saying: “If you touch me you will see how physical I can get.”

As he was taken down his mother wept and told the judge: “I never raised him to be like this.”

The jury had heard Kumire was in the front passenger seat of a car parked up in Woodside when police approached the vehicle.

He had a mobile phone in his hand which was seized along with a bag containing the drugs, which he had been trying to hide down his trousers. He also had £104 in cash.

Approached

The driver, Linsay Buttery, had an open wrap of cocaine on her lap.

Kumire told jurors he did not know there were drugs in the car until just before the police approached.

He said the phone was not his and that he had asked Miss Buttery if he could borrow it to make a call.

It was as she handed him the mobile that he noticed the black bag and opened it to find the drugs which, he said, caused them to start to argue as he did not know Miss Buttery took drugs.

When questioned by prosecuting barrister Frances Willmott about the phone, Kumire said he had been holding it for about half an hour when they were approached by the police.

In that time he said he had not made any calls or texts, though he was aware a text had come through. But analysis of the phone found two calls had been made to the number the text – relating to the supply of drugs – was received from.

When asked whether the £104 had come from drug dealing, as he was unemployed at the time, Kumire said it had not, but refused to offer another explanation.

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