Portsmouth cocaine dealer told police: I've got more at home

Angelo Grobler, 22, was stopped in Beach Road, Southsea, in December 2017 but has only just been sentenced nearly two years later.

Portsmouth Crown Court heard when stopped at 3.15am after Grobler was observed in a suspected drug deal he ‘pulled out a small bag of white powder from his boxer shorts’.

‘That was seized by police,’ prosecutor Gary Venturi said and added Grobler had £40 cash on him along with Union Jack snap-seal bags containing cocaine.

Grobler confessed there was more at his rented home. Police searched the address, not given in court, and found ‘an active drug dealing operation’ with burner phones, deal bags and a knuckleduster.

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Deal lists and weights were also found, along with 12 wraps of cocaine and 29 deals of skunk cannabis.

In all the drugs were worth £1,480 on the street. No reason was given in court for the delay in prosecution.

Grobler, now living in Stanley Road, Holbury, admitted two charges of possession with intent to supply class A drugs, cocaine and MDMA, and the same charge for class B, relating to the cannabis.

The court heard he has a ‘low risk of reoffending’ and was ‘drug free’.

Recorder Simon Foster imposed a two-year jail term suspended for two years with 300 hours’ unpaid work with a community order alongside it.

The judge revealed Grobler had been involved in a motorbike crash in 2016 that led to his drug use and need to ‘fund that habit’.

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‘It seems to me, in a way, astonishing that you resorted to crime,’ the judge added.

Recorder Foster added: ‘You were involved in the destruction of people’s lives, if not worse.’

He said prison would normally beckon in the circumstances - but suspended this due to his young age, the time between sentencing and the offence, that ‘there’s a hope for the future’, and his references.

Any breach of the suspended sentence would be dealt with Portsmouth’s most senior judge, Recorder Foster added.