A Dunedin drug dealer continued selling meth even when he knew police were on to him, a court has heard.
It was a measure of Jason Charles Dalwood’s addiction to the class-A drug, his counsel Anne Stevens QC told the Dunedin District Court this week.
Dalwood was sentenced to 27months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to two counts of offering to supply methamphetamine and two breaches of intensive supervision — a rehabilitative sentence he was supposed to be undertaking when the dealing took place.
The 33-year-old came to the police’s attention on November 1 last year when he was seen in a car at the Andersons Bay cemetery.
When Dalwood saw officers he stashed a meth pipe down his pants. But police conducted a warrantless search of Dalwood and his car and found the item, a cellphone and digital scales, along with 2.5g of the drug, split into quarter-gram bags known as "Qs".
Dalwood was not arrested at the time but the phone was forensically examined and Judge Peter Rollo said he must have known his days of freedom were numbered.
But the brush with the law provided no catalyst for change.
Dalwood was picked up again in March when meth paraphernalia was discovered in his vehicle and another cellphone was seized.
Analysis of the electronic devices uncovered the extent of the defendant’s drug-dealing.
Crown prosecutor Craig Power said that over the six weeks of offending captured by the charges, Dalwood offered more than 80g to at least 40 associates.
He described the defendant as "a street-level dealer" acting independently, selling to fund his own addiction.
The offers amounted to a potential street value of $60,000, said Judge Rollo.
Dalwood had received 13 drug convictions since 2006, the court heard.
Mrs Stevens said her client’s woes stemmed from a head injury he sustained while skateboarding as a teenager.
The result had been that Dalwood was now unable to manage any crises in his life without using substances as a crutch.
But, Mrs Stevens said, he was now desperate to address his demons and attend residential rehabilitation.
Dalwood expressed his emotions in a poem which was provided to the judge but not read in court.
Mr Power said it would take more than verse for the defendant to turn his life around.
"It’s one thing to talk the talk, it’s another to walk the walk," he said.
