Driver fined £500 for heroin and cocaine he used to 'self-medicate'

Daniel Pattrick, 41, of formerly of Knowle, was stopped by police in Elm Grove, Southsea, driving ‘erratically’.

Prosecutor Matthew Lawson said Pattrick, currently living in a hotel in Paternoster Road, Winchester, told police he had just dropped his girlfriend off at the hospital.

But when they searched him they found eight wraps of cocaine and 11 of heroin, worth £380 on the street.

Today Portsmouth Crown Court heard Pattrick, who admitted two charges possessing a class A drug overnight between November 2-3 in 2018, had been diagnosed with bladder cancer.

Fining him, judge Roger Hetherington said: ‘I accept that at the time you were in the throws of a diagnosis of bladder cancer and understandably were also depressed by that and difficulties you had to contend with.

‘That made you relapse into drugs. It’s something that you’ve struggled with for many years.’

Mitigating, Daniel Reilly said Pattrick’s drug use was ‘part of the management of his pain and the depression’.

Pattrick, who has 25 convictions for 76 offences, must pay an £85 victim surcharge.

He was due to be sentenced tomorrow at Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court for domestic violence.