A judge has warned a convicted drug dealer he will go to prison if he does not pay more than £5,000. Luke Prosser ran a cannabis operation from his mum's house and kept stolen motorbikes in his self-storage.
Wearing a grey sweatshirt with a NASA logo, the 23-year-old from Barry appeared at Cardiff Crown Court on Wednesday for a hearing to decide what would happen to his money from dealing cannabis and handling stolen goods. He had previously been handed a 12-month jail term suspended for two years.
Prosecutor Nigel Fryer said Prosser made £11,277.73 from his crimes but only had £5,475 available to pay the court. Police can also auction one of the stolen motorbikes he hoarded.
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Judge Richard Williams told Prosser he must pay £5,475 within three months or go to jail for three months. The prison time would not cancel the debt, he added. Prosser must also pay a £156 victim services surcharge.
Police raided Prosser's then-home on Coldbrook Road East in October 2020 and found drug paraphernalia including weighing scales, as well as an iPhone containing incriminating messages.
Officers then received intelligence which led them to bust into the home of Prosser's mother — where the defendant was living — in April last year and seize more than 1.2kg of cannabis which had a street value of up to £9,500. They also discovered £3,500 in cash.
The judge who passed sentence in May, Recorder Christopher Felstead, said: "No doubt you found dealing cannabis an easy way to make money. There were three phones with drug-dealing texts on them. Police also found an invoice for self-storage units, where they found four motorbikes, two of which turned out to be stolen."
The £4,000 Honda Fireblade and £4,200 Duke motorbikes had been stolen in late March. Prosser accepted that he knew or believed the bikes to be stolen, the court heard.
The defendant, of Holton Road, pleaded guilty to possessing the Class B drug with intent to supply and being concerned in its supply, as well as handling stolen goods. Recorder Felstead told him: "You're going to fairly soon face a very stark choice of whether you go down the path of a career criminal and I see you again and again, or whether you take a different path."
The probation service found Prosser posed a low risk of reoffending and that a jail term could be harmful. Recorder Felstead said he took this into account along with Prosser having a "supportive" partner and being free from drugs
The judge imposed a 12-month jail term suspended for two years as well as 150 hours of unpaid work and 15 days of rehabilitation activity. You can read more court stories here or subscribe to our crime and punishment newsletter here.
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