A Carlisle man who peddled cocaine and cannabis while aged just 15 has been spared custody by a judge who commended him for having courage to promptly admit his wrongdoing.
Nathan Lamb, now 18, was sentenced at the city’s crown court this morning, more than a year after he was arrested as a youth for committing two crimes over many months.
Police went to his Highfield Avenue address on October 8 2021, looking for drugs but didn’t find any. They did recover three mobile phones, two of which indicated the supply of cocaine and cannabis.
There was phone reference to high quality types of both illegal drug being available, evidence of mass message text bombs being sent to multiple people, discussion of ounces and in the notes section of his phone was a list of people who owed money.
Prosecutor Brendan Burke told Carlisle Crown Court: “This indicated he was in a position to supply drugs on credit.”
After being arrested and later charged, Lamb admitted being concerned in the supply of cocaine and cannabis between May 2020 — during the first COVID lockdown when he was aged just 15 — and October, 2021, just after he had turned 17.
Lamb’s guilty pleas came during a first appearance in an adult court, he having since turned 18.
Defence barrister Megan Tollitt said the teen began using cannabis as a coping mechanism amid the breakdown of both his education and relationship with his mother. He had used the word idiot when reflecting on his criminal activity but had latterly demonstrated a commitment to mend his ways.
Lamb had also build bridges with his mother, who was in court to hear Recorder Julian Shaw tell her son: “Adults who deal in cocaine and supply others go to jail. But you didn’t commit these offences as an adult. You were a child, a youth, a young man with some considerable difficulties that you were attempting to come to terms with.”
Recorder Shaw took the exceptional course, after hearing detailed information about the teen, to step back from custody. Instead he imposed a two-year community order comprising 200 hours’ unpaid work and rehabilitation work with a probation officer.
The judge told Lamb he was being sentenced as he would have been at the time of his arrest — as a 17-year-old — despite now being an adult.
Of his prompt admission of guilt, Recorder Shaw added: “For a young man with the difficulties you have had in your life, I accept that must have taken a degree of courage on your part and I commend you for that.”
