A mum avoided jail after she started dealing crack cocaine and heroin to pay off her ex's debt.
Jaydee Cooper, a mum-of-four, was arrested by police on September 27 last year after police carried out a warrant. The officers were involved in a two-day initiative codenamed Operation Medusa, which included a specialist team of officers from Merseyside Police as well as Plymouth police, reports PlymouthLive.
Michael Green, prosecuting, told Plymouth Crown Court the 28-year-old was found at the address with another man – Reece Trelease who was sentenced on January, 11 and a search revealed three mobile phones.
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One of the mobiles was a "graft" phone, while another belonged to one of her children. The graft phone contained bulk messages sent from the phone to users, advertising the availability of class A drugs for sale. The court heard Cooper was running the drugs line "on behalf of her ex-partner while he was in prison".
A second phone was her own personal mobile but confirmed it contained other similar messages received from drugs users requesting drugs. Cash was also seized at the property, amounting to £795 and further investigation found around £2,000 was deposited in a Post Office account. She admitted in interview she was concerned in the supply of class A drugs.
She told officers her ex-partner had a drugs debt of £8,000 hanging over him after he went to prison and so she took up the illicit business to pay off that debt. She admitted she would sell directly to users and then bank the money in the account he used to use.
Mr Green said she played a "lesser role" in the operation, although she had involvement in running the drugs line, made "limited if any financial advantage" but had some awareness of the scale of the operation.
In mitigation her advocate Ali Rafati said Cooper made full admission during interview and pleaded guilty to the charge and the additional charge of possessing criminal property, namely the £795 cash.
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He noted a positive pre-sentence report from the Probation Service, and said the circumstances she found herself in, with people turning up at her home looking to have their drug debt paid, while being the sole carer for two children and with two more children being looked after elsewhere, but cared for by her at weekend, suggested a suspended sentence. He also noted how two of her children had "enormous difficulties".
He said Cooper was in receipt of benefits all of which was spent on her children, to which Judge Neil Davey KC agreed, saying her financials circumstances "were so straightened" that a fine would "set her up to fail".
Mr Rafati said that for "whatever failings she has demonstrated in the past as a person she appears on the documents before to discharge her duties as a mother – apart from this case where she fell short – perfectly."
Judge Davey KC noted that Cooper had 37 previous convictions for 58 offences – none of which related to drugs. He said she had pleaded guilty to three counts of engaging in the supply of class A drugs and one of being in possession of criminal property.
He accepted her basis of plea, that she was requested by her ex-partner who was in jail with a drugs debt of around £8,000, she was "persuaded to get involved running a drugs line concerning class A drugs."
He said he accepted the mitigating factors, including her early guilty plea and that she was the sole carer for two of her children, and noted the pre-sentence report that she presented a realistic probability of rehabilitation.
As such he passed a sentence of 20 months suspended for two years for the three counts of being concerned in the supply of the three class A drugs to run concurrently and no separate penalty for the possession of criminal property. She would be made subject of a community order requiring her to attend up to 30 Rehabilitation Activity Requirement days. She was also be under a supervision requirement for two years.
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