Northern Ireland

East Belfast chef caught with cocaine worth up to £35,000 is jailed for a year

Laganside courthouse in Belfast
Laganside courthouse in Belfast Laganside courthouse in Belfast

AN EAST Belfast chef caught with cocaine worth up to £35,000 on the streets was today jailed for a year.

Brendan Austin was told by a judge that people like him who deal in Class A drugs will "face deterrent sentences from the courts''.

The 31-year-old, of Bryson Street in the Short Strand district, had pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine with intent to supply, possession of diazepam tablets and having almost £1,800 in cash.

Belfast Crown Court heard police stopped Austin in his BMW car on the Shore Road in the city in December 2017 under the Terrorism Act.

Prosecution lawyer Robin Steer said police searched the defendant and found a "bulge in the rear of his waistband'' which contained 14 deals bags of Class C drugs.

During a search at Antrim police station, more diazepam tablets were found.

The prosecutor said Austin dropped two bags with one containing 74 grammes of cocaine 81 per cent purity. The second bag contained 46 grammes of seven per cent purity.

He added that the total street value of the cocaine at ten per cent purity was between £25,000 and £35,000.

During a search of his house, police found weighing scales along with £1,765 in cash hidden in the kitchen's extractor fan.

A "deal list'' was found "with amounts of cash by their names totalling £1,270''.

Mr Steer said a number of the names on the deal list were found on Austin's mobile phone which showed text messages relating to drug deals.

At police interview, Austin claimed he was using the diazepam for his mental health issues and was "hiding them from his wife''.

Defence barrister Jon Paul Shields said Austin made the case that he was "being threatened and there was an element of duress'' by unnamed individuals who had come to his work with a parcel but he didn't know what was in it.

He said a friend of the defendant had died by suicide in September 2017 after getting involved with a criminal drug gang in Whiteabbey, Co Antrim, and Austin's life subsequently "spiralled downwards''.

Mr Shields added: "He is grateful that he was arrested when he was which put a stop to what he was involved in and has left him unable to be used by these individuals.''

Belfast Recorder Judge McFarland accepted that Austin had shown "genuine remorse'' and he was "being asked by others to commit these offences''.

However, the judge said an aggravating feature was that Austin was caught just 38 days after being released on police bail for other drug offences.

Handing him a two year sentence, the judge said Austin would serve half his sentence in custody and remainder on licence.

He also ordered the destruction of the drugs, mobile phone and weighing scales.