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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Toby Vue

National champ sentenced for 'downhill spiral' into drug, weapon offences

Martial artist Felicity Loiterton was on Thursday sentenced for a series of drug and weapon offences. Picture Instagram

A national Muay Thai champion has been spared further jail time for a series of drug and weapon offences in Canberra after her lawyer said it was a "classic case" of illicit substances causing her "downhill spiral".

Felicity Marie Loiterton, 29, appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to seven firearm and ammunition charges and four drug-related ones, including supplying drugs of dependence and drug driving.

Court documents stated Loiterton was found with a gel blaster replica gun in April when police, while speaking to her boyfriend, saw her enter a car parked outside her Kaleen home and placed items down the front of her pants.

A search of Loiterton's bag, strapped around her chest, uncovered five tablets of diazepam, as well as cannabis.

She was arrested and later granted bail, with conditions including not to be in possession of any firearms.

A police raid of Loiterton's home in July uncovered a gel blaster shotgun and four rounds of .22 ammunition.

Bomb technicians also had to be called to the home after commercial grade fireworks and modified fireworks were found.

Officers found methamphetamine in a small clip-seal bag, a tin containing $1600 in $50 notes, and an iPhone with messages between Loiterton and numerous people about the sale of the drug.

Police also found a Taser and two knives.

In his sentencing, magistrate Glenn Theakston said he considered the drug supply the most serious of Loiterton's offences because such offending "causes so much harm and destruction to so many lives".

"During the pre-sentence report, she describes subsidising her income by selling or supplying that substance," he said.

"That was in the context of her being a user of the substance as well.

"There's been a submission [by the prosecution] that the supply was purely for profit.

"I don't think I can make that finding in those circumstances."

Mr Theakston said the weapon offences were "much more serious than simply being in possession of one item once".

"It demonstrates a reoffending in circumstances where the defendant's clearly put on notice in relation to the significance of this type of offending," he said.

The magistrate said there was no suggestion Loiterton was affected by the illicit substances during the drug driving offence as she had consumed them the day before as opposed to only a few hours before.

"There's no suggestion here at all that she poses a risk to the community while driving," Mr Theakston said.

"She needs to attend counselling, training, work, study, and provide for her children."

He said all of those features were prosocial and should that be frustrated, then that has the potential to impact her rehabilitation and "therefore increases her risk of reoffending and that serves no one any benefit, including the community".

Mr Theakston said his sentencing took into account the offender's background, including a traumatic past and her more than 100 counselling sessions since 2014.

"There's still a need for general deterrence, still a need to try to persuade other members of the community not to engage in this type of behaviour, the need to denounce the behaviour ... and make the offender accountable for her actions," he said.

The 2019 flyweight-division national champion was fined $900 with six months to pay for three of the charges.

For the drug supply, she was sentenced to a three-month jail term that was suspended, upon her entering a 12-month good behaviour order, after she had already served 69 days in pre-sentence custody.

The drug driving charge was proven without conviction while the offender was convicted for most of the firearm charges and sentenced to the rising of the court.

Earlier in the hearing, the offender's lawyer, Jacob Robertson, said her client's situation was a "classic case" of "that downhill spiral" from consumption of illicit substances.

Prosecutor Emma Bayliss argued the motivation for the drug supply was "profit motivated", which represented "a significant aggravating factor".

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