JOSHUA Toole, the brother of former NSW Deputy premier and police minister Paul Toole, will spend Christmas a relatively free man after prosecutors again failed to have him locked up ahead of his sentence date for supplying nearly two kilograms of methamphetamine as part of a major ice supply network operating across the Hunter and Central Coast.
Joshua Toole, 40, on Friday walked out of Newcastle courthouse, again managing to delay starting what will inevitably be a lengthy jail term, after his lawyers, barrister April Francis and solicitor Drew Hamilton, fought off yet another prosecution detention application.
Toole in October pleaded guilty to supplying a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug after prosecutors rolled 30 counts of drug supply up into one totalling nearly two kilograms of methamphetamine.
Toole was in December last year released on NSW Supreme Court bail due to the "entirely unsatisfactory solitary incarceration" that he was facing behind bars due to his brother's high profile.
Magistrate Robert Stone agreed the conditions Toole faced if bail refused before being classified amounted to "exceptional and special circumstances" and continued Toole's bail.
Toole was on parole for similar drug supply offences and it was that plea that triggered the prosecution applying to have him detained immediately under relatively new legislation.
With Toole's sentence date recently set down for February, 2024, prosecutors filed another detention application, this time in Newcastle District Court, again attempting to have him locked up immediately.
And again it was unsuccessful, Judge Peter Whitford, SC, finding he could remain on strict bail conditions, including a 24-hour curfew, for much of the same reasons that the NSW Supreme Court and Newcastle Local Court had found.
Toole was at the head of a drug syndicate that included Paul Colvin, David Bui, Tahney Partland and Peter Charles Ninnes 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.
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.
