OUT on parole after serving nearly a decade behind bars for running a Newcastle drug syndicate, Joshua Toole jumped back into the "deep end" of the criminal underworld, acting as a "facilitator" for a major ice supply network operating across the Hunter and Central Coast.
Toole, 40, the younger brother of former NSW Deputy premier and police minister Paul Toole, had lost a series of jobs and relationships and relapsed into drug use before he began acting as a "liaison" between an undercover police operative and a network of drug dealers in 2022.
Toole had wasted much of his 30s languishing behind bars, but that didn't seem to deter him when he was released and the opportunity arose to start dealing in large quantities of ice.
Toole, who had been at the centre of a legal fight to have him refused bail ahead of Wednesday's sentence hearing, hugged his family and waved to his lawyers after he was given a non-parole period of three-and-a-half years, meaning he will be eligible for release in December, 2026.
Toole supplied a total of two kilograms of methamphetamine and was at the head of a syndicate or "drug cooperative" that included Paul Colvin, David Bui, Tahney Partland and Peter Charles Ninnes and that used encrypted apps, "dead drop" drug transactions and attempted to flood the Hunter and Central Coast with ice in 2022.
But, instead of mid-level drug dealers looking to feed the ravenous methamphetamine market, the syndicate were communicating with police and repeatedly supplied large quantities of ice to undercover operatives.
Between March and October 2022, police were conducting surveillance on Toole, including putting a device on his car, and were also communicating with the syndicate using the encrypted messaging application, Threema.
In July 2022, an undercover police officer was added to a group chat that included Toole and Colvin.
And during a conversation the group arranged a "dead drop" of drugs for $32,500.
On July 13, the undercover police officer drove to a remote fire trail at Murrays Beach where he found 140 grams of ice hidden inside a tyre.
The officer took the drugs and left $32,500 in a spot nearby.
A short time later, Colvin arrived and picked up the cash.
The same arrangement was made during another chat on the encrypted app and on August 5 the undercover police officer went back to the same spot, dropped off the cash and took the drugs.
Again, Colvin came and collected the cash later that day.
Toole and Ninnes also arranged a "dead drop" of 140 grams of ice, which they left in a McDonald's cup at Belmont North on August 11.
As well as those supplies, Toole and Bui supplied methamphetamine to undercover operatives on 10 other occasions, each time leaving about 140 grams of the drug behind a black pot plant near the front door of a home at Wadalba.
Defence barrister Philip Boulten, SC, argued Toole wasn't part of a syndicate with a hierarchy, but rather was a member of a cooperative of dealers with a common goal.
Toole didn't necessary have access to the drugs, but he had access to those who did, Mr Boulten said.
"He was part of the scene, enmeshed in it," Mr Boulten said. "Undercover police knew to go to Mr Toole, they knew that he could get access to the sorts of drugs they were looking to buy."
Mr Boulten argued there was not enough evidence to show Toole was "the man" in Newcastle, had access to large quantities of drugs and was running a classic drug syndicate complete with a hierarchy of couriers and drug runners.
He said Toole had a "dysfunctional childhood" and had "never actually emerged from it".
"On one view of it he just looks like a repeat drug trafficker," Mr Boulten said. "At the heart of it he is someone who has been trying to cope with a lot of things without much professional intervention."
Toole was granted NSW Supreme Court bail in December due to the "entirely unsatisfactory solitary incarceration" that he was facing behind bars due to his brother's high profile.
And despite prosecutors repeatedly applying to have him detained after his guilty plea in October, they were unsuccessful because it would mean Toole would be placed back into 23-hour lockdown until he could be sentenced and become a classified prisoner.
As well as Toole, Colvin was on Wednesday jailed for a maximum of three-and-a-half years, with a non-parole period of two years.
He had been a prized scalp of a strike force who smashed a major drug supply ring in the Hunter in 2015 and was later jailed for a maximum of nine years and six months.
Bui will be sentenced for his role next month, while Ninness will be sentenced in May.
Partland pleaded guilty to knowingly dealing with the proceeds of crime in relation to the $124,000 in cash she collected from the pot plant and was given an 18-month intensive corrections order.
