‘Idiotic’ teenagers caught selling ketamine in Portsmouth street are spared jail

TWO ‘naive’ teenagers caught in a car selling ketamine have been spared prison after it took more than a year to prosecute them.
Oliver Barnard after leaving Portsmouth Crown Court
 (020119-1)Oliver Barnard after leaving Portsmouth Crown Court
 (020119-1)
Oliver Barnard after leaving Portsmouth Crown Court (020119-1)

Friends Oliver Barnard, 18, and Jack Huskinson 19, looked wide-eyed and nervous in the dock awaiting to learn their fate.

Supporters and family members wept in the dock as judge Roger Hetherington spared them prison – warning them if they had been adults they would have been sent to jail.

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Portsmouth Crown Court heard they admitted being ‘stupid’ and ‘idiotic’ to probation officers when interviewed ahead of court.

Oliver Barnard after leaving Portsmouth Crown Court
 (020119-1)Oliver Barnard after leaving Portsmouth Crown Court
 (020119-1)
Oliver Barnard after leaving Portsmouth Crown Court (020119-1)

James Caldwell, mitigating for both teenagers, said: ‘Both are young men but they’ve demonstrated a lack of maturity.

‘Mr Barnard is still 18 and Huskinson has just turned 19 – still very young men. They’re described as naive.’

He added: ‘These are not young men who are going to breach any such (probation) order or be back in front of a court ever again.’

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Sentencing, judge Rogether Hetherington said: ‘You were in the company of two other boys in a car in the Somers Road area of Portsmouth and plainly you were dealing drugs and about that time you, Barnard, were found to be exiting from a house by the car, which you were driving.

‘Analysis of the phones showed that both of you were involved in the dealing of ketamine, and you Barnard also in cocaine.

‘There was a deals list making reference to some five customers.’

He added: ‘If you didn’t realise it then, ever since your arrest and throughout this protracted proceedings you will have certainly have realised that anyone who deals in drugs faces a very significant prison sentence.

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‘And it’s only because of exceptional factors in your respective cases that allow me to take a different course today.

‘One of those factors is that the two other boys in the car, one of whom was also charged with being concerned in class A drug, were dealt with by referral order and the other for possession of cocaine, by conditional discharge.’

He said the ‘most significant’ mitigation was that the length of time passed since the offences in September 2017 allowing them to move on and stop associating with troublemakers.

As reported, Barnard admitted being concerned in the supply of ketamine, a class B drug, between August 13 , 2017, and September 2, 2017. He admitted being concerned in the supply of cocaine, a class A drug, in the same period.

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Apprentice electrician Barnard, of Gladys Avenue, North End, also admitted possession of criminal property – £524.

He received a 12-month community order with 200 hours’ unpaid work.

His co-defendant roofer Huskinson of Nash Close, Waterlooville, admitted being concerned in the supply of ketamine. He received  a 12-month community order with 120 hours’ unpaid work.