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Lithuanian man caught with drugs a month after arriving in Northern Ireland faces deportation

Laganside Court in Belfast
Laganside Court in Belfast Laganside Court in Belfast

A LITHUANIAN man caught drug dealing within a month of coming to Northern Ireland last June faces deportation this summer.

Due to time served, by then, Vialijus Novokrescenovas will have completed the equivalent of the two years and three months he was given for his admitted possession of heroin with intent to supply.

Prosecution lawyer Simon Jenkins told Belfast Crown Court that when being searched following his arrest on June 28 last year, a package containing over 100 'twisted wraps' of heroin, fell from under his armpit.

Mr Jenkins said that Novokrescenovas initially told police that he was an addict, and had paid a £600 deposit for the Class A drugs, with a 43 per cent purity, and an estimated street value of over £3,000.

However, the lawyer added, that by his guilty plea, he accepted he was a dealer.

Defence barrister Seamus Mallon described his client as a vulnerable addict who found himself living on the fringes, a nomadic life style after being in the north for only a month before his arrest.

Mr Mallon also claimed that the father of three who faces deportation on his release from jail, was used as a 'patsy' by people he had thought of and trusted as friends, but who instead ended up being used and exploited.

Sentencing him Judge David Smyth QC said that while he was essentially funding himself by his small time dealing, his offending needed to be dealt with by way of a custodal sentence.