Scarborough boat skipper caught with 1.5 kilos of cannabis and cannabis edibles worth thousands
A pleasure-boat captain who was caught with over a kilo of marijuana and cannabis edibles at his home in Scarborough has been spared jail.
Peter Williams, 51, was at home when police turned up at his door and initially searched a shed in the back yard where they found over a kilogramme of cannabis in vacuum-sealed bags secreted inside confectionery tubs, York Crown Court heard.
Officers also found weighing scales and seven ‘bags for life’ inside the shed which contained 528 packages of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) sweets, said prosecutor Victoria Ball.
Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the psychoactive element of cannabis.
Ms Ball said that when officers went back inside the house in Eden Drive, Edgehill, they found a wooden box on the kitchen table inside which were a debtors’ list, 57g of cannabis and a cannabis grinder.
In total, police found 1.5kg of cannabis, in addition to the 528 packets of THC sweets.
The estimated street value of the cannabis was put at £9,680 and the THC had a wholesale or bulk value of £4,025.
However, an expert said that if the cannabis sweets were sold in smaller amounts, they would have fetched between £7,920 and £18,480.
Police also found £1,981 criminal cash inside the property which was the proceeds of drug-dealing.
Various wads of cash were found hidden in an upstairs bedroom, the kitchen and living room.
Police also seized Williams’s mobile phone which had messages or “conversational threads” with drug customers in which he arranged to meet them at his home to sell them his illicit goods during a month-long period between October and November 2021.
Ms Ball said that Williams would buy cannabis in bulk and then sell them in “small street-deal measures”.
Following his arrest on November 17, 2021, he was brought in for questioning but remained silent and refused to give police the PIN code for his phone.
Due to this refusal, the police forensic unit wasn’t able to download data and find the incriminating text messages on Williams’s phone until August 2023 which, together with subsequent court backlogs, meant that the case was now nearly five years’ old.
Williams, now of Eastborough, was interviewed again in May last year and told police that he had been dealing drugs to fund a gambling addiction and pay back loans.
He was charged with possession with intent to supply cannabis, being concerned in the supply of a Class B drug and possessing criminal cash.
He admitted the offences at Scarborough Magistrates’ Court earlier this year and appeared for sentence at the Crown Court on May 22.
Ms Ball said that Williams had nine previous offences on his record including possessing cannabis in 2023.
Williams’s solicitor Neil Cutte said that his client, a pleasure-boat captain and fisherman, was hooked on gambling at the time he was dealing cannabis and that character references “paint a picture of a hard-working man who cares for his family”.
“Everybody speaks well of him – the (boat) passengers, crew and other professional colleagues on boats,” added Mr Cutte.
He said that Williams started using cannabis in about 2014 following the death of his mother when his online gambling “spiralled out of control”.
He then sought help from a charity which helps people with addictions and had not used cannabis since.
Judge Simon Hickey said the offences were so serious that a jail sentence must follow.
However, he said this could be suspended due to the delay in the case reaching court, the glowing character references, the defendant’s guilty pleas and the fact he had now beaten his cannabis habit.
He told Williams: “Clearly, you are a very hard-working man and in my judgement you have put this (offending) behind you.
"I think you have turned your life around.”
For those reasons, the judge suspended the 12-month prison sentence for 18 months.
Williams was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and complete 20 rehabilitation-activity days.