Locked up: Teenager was ordered to sell drugs in Oswestry to clear debt

Peter McNoon, who was only 17 at the time, was caught in the town by Merseyside police officers who were there assisting the West Mercia police executing search warrants.

McNoon was spotted in Castle Street at 9.20am on May 23 last year and when he noticed the police he walked off quickly and was seen putting his hand down the waistband of his trousers. The suspicious officers stopped him and when searched he was found to have two mobile phones, £155 cash, one £10 wrap of cocaine and 11 wraps of heroin, said Derek Jones, prosecuting.

When his phones were examined two messages were found relating to drug supplying. McNoon was interviewed but made no comment and was released on bail pending investigations.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that on October 19 McNoon broke into a house in Rosewood Avenue, Pensby, Wirral, and stole jewellery, a TV set and a purse. He also stole the keys to the pregnant householder’s Mini Countryman and when she awoke in the morning found she had been burgled and her car stolen.

A couple of days later he committed two further burglaries in nearby Spital and was sentenced to two years’ detention for those offences in November. Fingerprint evidence linking him to the Pensby burglary had not been confirmed by that time.

Worried

Mr Jones said that the woman householder, who had her two young children sleeping upstairs at the time of the raid, has since given birth to her third child and is worried about being in the house alone and is constantly checking her doors and window.

McNoon, now 18, of Norman Street, Birkenhead, Wirral, pleaded guilty to that burglary, stealing the Mini and two offences of being concerned in supplying heroin and cocaine. Judge David Aubrey QC sentenced him to two years’ detention to run consecutively to the sentence imposed in November.

Neil Gunn, defending, said McNoon “is an immature young man who was in the clutches of a drugs gang. He had a drug debt and he was directed to Oswestry and told what to do”. He explained that the defendant started using cannabis at the age of 15 and then moved on to cocaine and at the time of the offences was addicted to both drugs and in debt to his suppliers.

“He has learnt a salutary lesson and wants to move on with his life when released. He has done well in prison and has a talent to fix televisions. He is doing a brick-laying course while in custody,” he added.

Sentencing McNoon, the judge said, “I have heard you are adept at fixing televisions. It seems you are also adept at stealing televisions.”

He asked him to imagine the fear of the burglary victim when she awoke to find she had been burgled and her fear that she might be burgled again.