Leamington woman caught with a staggering 1,200 street deals of heroin and crack cocaine has been spared a jail sentence

A Leamington woman who was caught with a staggering 1,200 street deals of heroin and crack cocaine, together with electronic scales to weigh out the drugs has been spared a jail sentence.

Amrit Kaur escaped an immediate prison sentence after finally pleading guilty at Warwick Crown Court to charges of possessing the two drugs with intent to supply them.

Kaur (27) of Brunswick Street, Leamington, who had first denied the charges, was handed a two-year jail term suspended for two years and ordered to take part in a rehabilitation activity.

Prosecutor Graeme Simpson said that on the morning of 17 January 2019 the police executed a search warrant at Kaur’s flat.

They found 266 wraps of heroin and 963 wraps of crack cocaine, together worth a total of £12,230, which Mr Simpson observed were ‘clearly for street dealing.’

There were also three further packages of cocaine worth another £280 with Kaur’s fingerprints on them.

The police also seized a set of electronic scales with traces of the drugs on them and two phones, one of which had messages sent from it offering drugs for sale.

And they found £499.98 in cash which Recorder Balraj Bhatia QC ordered to be confiscated as the proceeds of dealing under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

When Kaur was interviewed, she said the three packets of cocaine were hers, but she denied any knowledge of the hundreds of street deals.

She claimed ‘a friend of a friend’ had stayed with her, and that the drugs must have been left by him without her knowledge – and she pleaded not guilty when she first appeared at the court.

She eventually changed he pleas to guilty on the basis that the dealing was not her operation, and that she had been provided with the drugs and the phone, and in return for selling the drugs she was given some for her own use.

Mr Simpson said that basis was not accepted by the prosecution, but he was not asking of a ‘trial of issue’ over it.

Seamran Sidhu, defending, argued that Kaur’s had been ‘a lesser role, performing a limited function under direction.’

“She says she was involved out of naivety, and she had very little awareness of the scale of the operation. She is 27 years of age, with no previous convictions.”

Miss Sidhu said Kaur had become estranged from her family and began using drugs, but since her arrest she had not reoffended and had got her life back on track.

She has become reunited with her family and has moved back in with her mother – and she now has two children, one aged one and the other just eight weeks old.

“Both were born after the offences, and she is the sole carer of them.

“This encounter with the court system has been an experience she will never forget, and the court is unlikely to have any contact with her again. The question is whether there’s an alternative to an immediate custodial sentence,” she added.

Sentencing Kaur, Recorder Bhatia told her: “You come from a decent background. You belong to a culture, like many cultures, which values a family life.

“But, for whatever reason, when you left home and embarked on an independent lifestyle you became involved with company which was simply not good for you.

“You know that possession with intent to supply class A drugs ends up with immediate custodial sentences.

“Even on your basis of plea that you were provided with bags of drugs and instructed to send mass text messages, that is a significant aggravating feature because it goes to mass supply.

“Had I wanted to go behind that basis and ask for further evidence on the Crown’s case, I have no doubt I would find information not favourable to your case.

“Before I had read the pre-sentence report and the references, and before I had heard the mitigation, I certainly had immediate custody pencilled in.”

Gesturing with his thumb and forefinger, he told her: “You have come this close to going through that door behind you today. Go home to your children and don’t come back before the courts again.”