A 41-year-old St Michael artist was today given a month in which to pay court fines totalling $3 000 after he pleaded guilty to six drug charges.
Craig Bernard Holmes appeared before Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court No 2, for the offences of possession, trafficking and intent to supply 52 grams of cannabis. He also faced three similar charges in relation to 1.35 grams of cocaine.
Station Sergeant Peter Barrow told the court that when police executed a search warrant at Holmes’ home just after 6 am on September 6, he jumped from his bed and threw a plastic bag through his window on to a neighbour’s roof.
When the bag was retrieved, 92 wrappings of cannabis and 14 wrappings of cocaine were found inside.
When Holmes was interviewed by police, he explained that “things hard for me. I was just trying to raise some money to pay back the credit union.”
Lawmen also found more marijuana wrapped in plastic on a shelf in his bedroom.
Attorney-at-law Arthur Holder submitted that the father of three
was an artist whose last conviction
was in 1994.
He therefore asked that a presentencing report be done on his client, based on the length of time that he has not been before the courts and that he be granted bail until the report was ready.
However, Magistrate Cuffy-Sargeant said she was not minded to do so. She further questioned why Holmes had never sought to have his criminal record expunged.
That being the case, Holder then asked the court to consider convicting, reprimanding and discharging Holmes since it seemed clear to him that the substances were “not intended for use by anyone else.”
Although the trafficking charges were as a result of the weight involved, the lawyer said, he felt that they too should be treated in a similar fashion.
Holder then asked that the court “be as lenient as possible” under the circumstances, since his client had spent more than two decades away from the courts.
Should the court not be “so minded,” the lawyer asked that any fine imposed reflect the weight and the $425 street value of the drugs.
Holmes was reprimanded and discharged on both counts of intent to supply and fined $750 each on the other four matters.