Drug dealer Danny Ralph Thomas is locked up (From York Press)

Drug dealer Danny Ralph Thomas is locked up

8:09am Monday 23rd November 2009

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A drug dealer will be spending Christmas behind bars after pleading guilty to buying drugs in bulk for a party.

Danny Ralph Thomas, of Bell View Court, off Byland Avenue, York, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possessing 8.4 grams of cannabis and 23.3 grams of amphetamine with intent to supply.

He also had 337 tablets with a Batman logo on each one.

He told police he believed they were the class A drug ecstasy, although tests later found they were benzylpiperazine – called BZP –- which is marketed as a “legal high” but was first trialled for use as a worming treatment for cattle.

The drugs were discovered during a police raid at Thomas’s grandmother’s home on October 30 last year where the 23-year-old lived. Police also discovered £400 and four mobile phones, one of which showed evidence of being used for ordering drugs.

But Thomas told police he was not a regular drug dealer and had bought the drugs as a one-off to sell to people who were attending a weekend-long party he was hosting.

York Crown Court heard on that the cannabis was worth about £28, the amphetamine £127 and the BZP tablets would have sold for between £1 and £3 each.

Glenn Parsons, mitigating, asked that leniency be shown as it was Thomas’s first offence, he had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and because he had shown a lack of sophistication in buying the fake ecstasy.

Mr Parsons said Thomas was a full-time carer for his grandmother and he realised his actions had brought “great shame” upon her.

Judge David Bradshaw also heard that Thomas admitted being a regular drug user.

Sentencing him he said: “Your counsel has urged me not to send you away but you are going to custody today.

“You are an essential cog in drug dealing, even at the level of organised parties.

“It is often said by people who are addicted to drugs that their first introduction was at parties and in my view that’s a very serious matter.

“The least sentence I can pass upon you is 12 months in prison.”

Judge Bradshaw also ordered the drugs to be destroyed and the £400 that found in Thomas’s possession to go towards court costs.

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