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16
Apr 2021
Harrogate cocaine and ketamine dealer jailed for 18 months
A cocaine and ketamine dealer from Harrogate has been jailed for 18 months today.
Callum McLachlan, 20, sold cocaine and ketamine - a tranquilizer notorious for inducing a trance-like state in users - on the streets of Harrogate.
In June 2019 his enterprise fell apart when police pulled over a Fiat Punto travelling between Harrogate Hill and the A61.
McLachlan was the driver and his 17-year-old girlfriend - a former boarding-school pupil whom we have chosen not to name - was in the front passenger seat. A third named man was in the back seat, said prosecutor Imran Khan.
Officers, noting a strong smell of cannabis inside the vehicle, searched the car and found 7g of ketamine inside McLachlan’s wallet. His girlfriend and the male passenger had small amounts of cannabis.
A roadside test revealed he had been drug-driving for which he subsequently received an 18-month driving ban.
McLachlan was arrested and taken into custody, where police found 18 wraps of cocaine and ketamine.
Officers searched a flat in the Dragon Road area where McLachlan and his girlfriend had been living together and found more drugs and £3,585 cash – the proceeds of his dealing.
McLachlan, lately of Woodfield Road, Harrogate, was charged with six separate drug charges, including possess cocaine with intent to supply, cannabis possession, possessing ketamine with intent to supply, supplying ketamine, possessing MDMA and possessing criminal cash.
He pleaded guilty to all charges on the basis that he had been dealing within his own social circle.
His girlfriend - was charged with being concerned in the supply of ketamine. She initially denied this but later pleaded guilty on the basis that she acted as a conduit for her boyfriend.
Ismael Uddin, for McLachlan, claimed his young client was no “master criminal” despite having criminal convictions.
Mr Uddin said:
He pointed to McLachlan’s “glowing references” from “everybody” who knew him, and he was in gainful employment.
Susannah Proctor, mitigating for McLachlan’s then girlfriend, said she had been “achieving (educationally) at a very high standard” until she met McLachlan.
The female defendant, now 20, had been at boarding school until the age of 16 and then enrolled at a college where she met and fell in love with McLachlan.
She failed her college course because of her relationship with her co-accused but was now back in full-time education in London.
Ms Proctor said:
She said the woman had “closed her eyes to the reality” of what her boyfriend had been up to, and the resulting court case had been an “awful” experience for her family.
Read more:
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Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, said there was no getting away from the fact that McLachlan was a “supplier and street-dealer” and must face justice to serve as a warning to others that “drugs wreck lives”.
The judge told McLachlan he was “going to keep (the jail sentence) as low as I can”.
McLachlan was jailed for 18 months, he will serve half of the term behind bars before being released on licence.
Dealers peddling Class A substances can normally expect sentences of at least four years.
Mr Morris told McLachlan’s female co-defendant:
She was given a 12-month community order with 200 hours’ unpaid work.
The judge postponed financial-confiscation proceedings until September, when McLachlan will be stripped of the cash he made from his dealing enterprise.
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