A dad fought back tears as he told a judge he had "lost everything" to drugs after running up £2,500 debts to his dealers.
Drug addict Peter Spencer was threatened and pressured into allowing his suppliers to dig up the concrete in the yard of his home in Chiswell Street, Kensington, and install a safe containing £180,000 worth of heroin, cocaine and cannabis. The organised crime group also set up a small cannabis farm in his loft and cajoled him into operating two "graft phones".
The drugs were found during a raid by Merseyside Police on September 6, 2019, and Spencer admitted he had allowed his home to be used as a stash house. He later pleaded guilty to possessing Class A and B drugs with intent to supply and a charge of cultivating cannabis.
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Spencer was unrepresented during his sentencing hearing at Liverpool Crown Court yesterday, but when asked by Judge David Potter whether he wanted to ask the court to give him time to find a lawyer, he replied: "I won't be asking for an adjournment, I just need this over with today."
Judge Potter said he had received a pre-sentence report prepared by the Probation Service, which described how Spencer was "fearful" over prison but was "under no illusions" and felt he would be able to cope. Judge Potter asked if that was still his view.
He replied: "What I did was wrong, I have to pay for it don't I?".
Spencer was asked how he addressed his drug problem after his arrest, and said he had been clean since January 2020. He said: "It took me a while to be honest. I was going through a custody case with social services and I was working with them. I got off it about six months after I was arrested. I receive drug tests every three months off social services, hair sample ones."
In an emotional exchange, Spencer said since his arrest his relationship with his then partner, also a drug addict, had broken down and she had "abandoned the children". He said he saw the children, aged three, five, six and nine, every weekend but they had been placed in foster care.
Judge Potter said the pre-sentence report had assessed him at a medium risk of committing further offences. Spencer said: "It's just got to the point I'm just trying to sort my life out to the point I can get my children back...
"They say it's a medium risk, all I can say is the only focus in my life now is my kids. Whether I go to jail today, I can't get my children out of care if I go back...
"All I can say is, if I could turn back time and not get on drugs I would. The people who have really suffered are my children. I wish I had never got on drugs because of what has happened to them, but I wish I had never got on drugs at all. I have lost everything."
Spencer was sentenced alongside another man, 34-year-old Christopher Bird, who was found in the house with £2,500 in cash in his pocket as well as a set of keys for the safe in the back yard.
Bird, of Walsingham Road, Childwall, was initially charged with being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs but reached a deal with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which accepted a guilty plea to possessing criminal property and allowed the more serious charges to lie on the file.
Karl Scholz, prosecuting, said: "It was immediately apparent that there were drugs in the house. There were drugs on the kitchen surfaces, scales and tick lists."
A detailed search of the house uncovered a hole in the concrete floor of the back yard, covered with a plastic mat. Inside, a safe had been installed which was openable using the keys found in Bird's pocket.
Inside the safe was a large haul of drugs, including 1.5kg of cocaine, 81g of heroin, 1.6kg of cannabis resin and 350g of cannabis bush. The court heard the estimated street value of the stash was between £89,000 and £187,000.
The search also uncovered four potted cannabis plants in the loft, alongside cultivation equipment. Mr Scholz said: "Spencer was interviewed and he was to state that he and his partner had been drug users and that he accrued drug debts of some £2,500, and he was to say pressure was brought to bear on him to store drugs at his home address."
Bird initially claimed he was not involved in any criminality and was simply in "the wrong place at the wrong time" when the house was raided. However, he later admitted the money laundering charge, although no explanation was given as to his role in the supply of drugs.
John Rowan, representing Bird, told the court his client had no previous convictions and was a a "hard-working family man".
Judge Potter, passing sentence, said: "The supply of Class A drugs, as you know, is a very serious crime which brings misery to those addicted to them and to the families who try and support them. They blight communities in which addicts look to maintain those addictions in all sorts of areas."
Spencer was jailed for three years and four months. Bird was handed an eight month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to complete 120 hours of unpaid work and complete five Rehabilitation Activity Days with the Probation Service.
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