Robbery victim rumbled as cannabis dealer after police turn up to his Portsmouth flat

Steven Tunbridge, 22, had been robbed in summer last year, but police were met with a ‘strong smell of cannabis’ when they were allowed in.

Officers then noticed tubs of cash, scales and a deal list.

When they searched the flat, they found around £44,680 in cash along with 188g of skunk cannabis worth £1,200.

A notebook containing a deals list had noted around £7,900 of transactions, Portsmouth Crown Court heard.

When he appeared in court via videolink from prison, Tunbridge, of Estella Road, Buckland, repeatedly interrupted the hearing.

He could be seen smirking, yawning and doing his hair on the screen.

Sentencing, judge Christopher Parker QC said: ‘The impression I get and the impression you convey as the facts were being outlined, then as your barrister was doing his best to help you, was that you couldn’t care less.’

Tunbridge shot back: ‘I’m entitled to my opinion. You was interrupting me.’

The judge handed Tunbridge a 12-month sentence on a charge of possession of cannabis, a class B drug, with intent to supply, and on a charge of possessing criminal property.

But he said he would make the sentences run together, ‘and assume it’s youth which speaks rather than experience’.

Anthony Bailey, for Tunbridge, said his client admitted the offences at the first opportunity.

‘When he was younger he became involved in misusing cannabis,’ he said.

‘He got into debt, which is not surprising because he was unemployed and then was used as a dealer by the principal dealer.’

The drugs had already been bagged up ready for onwards sale, he added.

And he said the money was stashed in Tunbridge’s flat and was destined for a dealer higher up the chain.