Cocaine user in debt stored £50,000 worth of cannabis in his Waterlooville loft

Portsmouth Crown Court heard Jack Darcy got into around £5,000 worth of debt to his cocaine dealer.

Just a week later on March 15 last year Darcy, 28, was visited at home in Waterlooville by police on an unrelated matter.

‘Whilst searching the address (officers) found some five kilos of cannabis in the loft,’ prosecutor Jane Terry said.

‘It was separated into kilo bags that had been vacuum packaged, four in a Sports Direct large holdall and a fifth in a separate location but also in the loft area.

‘In excess of £5,000 was also rolled up in a hoodie in a cupboard in the kitchen, a number of mobile phones and a rucksack containing coins (were found).’

A Hampshire police drugs expert estimated the wholesale value was between £20,000-25,000, while the cannabis would have been worth £50,000 on the street.

When he was arrested Darcy claimed the cash had been given to him by his girlfriend Jorja Johnson’s father.

But when he was spoken to, he confirmed this was not the case.

Russell Pyne, mitigating, said: ‘He had built up a drug debt of £5,000 or so and was offered the chance to work that debt off - but of course... the chance is rather loaded in these circumstances of a drug user and a drug dealer.

‘And so it was the defendant agreed to store both drugs and money in his property.’

Darcy, who has eight convictions for 10 offences, has stopped taking cocaine and is working earning £600 a month as a car buyer.

Sentencing, judge David Melville QC imposed a six-month term suspended for two years with 150 hours’ unpaid work.

Darcy admitted being concerned in the supply of a class B drug and possession of criminal property.

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