A dealer threw nearly £5,000 of drugs out of his bedroom window and into his neighbour's garden when police raided his house.
Liverpool Crown Court heard yesterday afternoon, Wednesday, that a search warrant was executed at Andrew Holligan's home on Greenside Avenue in Aintree at around 9.45am on August 19 this year. Prosecutor Kirsty Linforth described how the 31-year-old was seen by officers launching a hold-all out of an upstairs window into the garden of a next door property.
This bag was subsequently found to contain numerous bags of cannabis, a further amount of the class B drug in a box and a set of scales. Five mobile devices were recovered during the raid, one of which was being used as a graft phone.
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A total of £300 in cash was also seized. The 315g of illicit substances were estimated to have a street value of up to £4,715.
Holligan later claimed that he had "bought the drugs for £1,250 and would have sold them on to friends for approximately £2,000". But this was refuted by the prosecution.
The street dealer has 14 previous convictions for 23 offences, including 16 for drug offences. He was convicted of possession of cannabis with intent to supply in 2005, and received 20 months in 2015 for the same offence.
In 2020, Holligan was jailed for 28 months for possession of cocaine and cannabis with intent to supply. Then, in March last year, he was handed a further eight months behind bars for possession of cannabis with intent to supply - a sentence from which he had been released on licence at the time of his latest offence.
Mark Phillips, defending, said: "He accepts responsibility. He is ashamed and embarrassed by what he has done.
"He is described as a young man with some learning difficulties and flawed thinking skills. He acquiesced to pressure and fell back into the same patterns.
"When he is eventually released, he says he will never be before the courts again. In order to achieve that, he does need some help.
"He himself is a clear user of cannabis. He is a young man with underlying difficulties, and he has coped in the past in dealing with his difficulties - including the death of his brother - by resorting to cannabis."
Holland admitted possession of cannabis with intent to supply and was locked up for 18 months. He was also to pay a victim surcharge - with forfeiture of the ill-gotten money, phone and paraphernalia and the destruction of the drugs also ordered.
Sentencing, Recorder Kevin Slack said: "You asserted that you had been pressured by people in the community to deal in drugs and suggest that precious little of the benefit was to come to you. I accept that albeit you may have been encouraged by others to participate once again in dealing cannabis, you accept that your role in this case is a significant one.
"You accepted that you had been dealing cannabis over the summer prior to your arrest. You have an appalling record for drug supply.
"You have to understand that the sentences will only get longer if you continue to involve yourself in the supply of drugs to others. You know what will happen if you continue with your offending."
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