A WHITEHAVEN heroin dealer who stashed illegal wares in his boxer shorts has been jailed for almost four years.
Former soldier David Anthony Graham was sentenced at Carlisle Crown Court this morning (WED) for two separate peddling crimes – the second committed while he was awaiting punishment for the first.
Police first stopped the 42-year-old father-of-three at Flatt Walks in Whitehaven last May. They found him in possession of £300 cash, a multi-tool with a blade exposed and a mobile phone containing damning drug dealing message and reference to him “coining it in”.
He was searched after being arrested. “When he removed his boxer shorts it was noticed that a small black sock fell out,” said prosecutor Gerard Rogerson. A clear snap bag within that contained 13 wraps of heroin, and two further wraps, along with weighing scales, were found at Graham’s Croasdale Avenue home.
Despite being on bail and awaiting sentence for that crime, Graham was stopped again on May 26 this year and found to have hundreds of pounds worth of heroin. A detective had described his initially claim that this was a personal use stash to see him through COVID-19 and until sentence as “highly unlikely”.
Graham admitted two counts of possessing heroin with intent to supply, and the illegal possession of a multi-tool. This was recovered by police during the first incident, Graham having told of being “jumped” by youths and then speaking in a text of having the weapon and them “all getting it”.
A former soldier, Graham had suffered personal loss and trauma and received a previous post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis, and since kicked his heroin habit.
Passing a total sentence of 46 months, Judge Nicholas Barker noted Graham had spoken of being a heroin addict during six years spent “in a fog”.
“But of course what underlines these offences is that you were supplying heroin to others and therefore perpetuating, continuing, the devastating effect it had upon you on other people, and of course that is where the culpability lies in this case,” said Judge Barker.
“This was a dealing operation by you for commercial benefit – no doubt about that.”
