Prison for “prolific" dealer who sold ecstasy to man before suicide threat

Tuesday 30 March 2021

A “prolific street dealer,” who was caught after one of her customers threatened to throw himself from the top floor of a multi-storey car park, after taking a particularly strong batch of ecstasy, has been jailed for four years.

27-year-old Jade Victoria Bromley Bennett, who was sentenced by the Royal Court on Monday, had admitted three charges of supplying MDMA, a Class A drug also known as ecstasy, in powder and tablet form over a five-year period.

Bennett, who had a managerial role in a town coffee shop, was arrested last February after police investigated a suicide threat made by one of her customers.

He had phoned the police to say he was going to jump from Minden Place car park. Having split up from his girlfriend earlier that day, the man then took one gram of MDMA powder that had been sold to him by Bennett, and drank alcohol.

When selling the £70-worth of MDMA to the man in Sand Street car park the day before, Bennett advised him to be careful as it was “strong stuff."

Police officers went to see the man at his home following the call and arranged for him to be picked up by an ambulance and taken to hospital. 

Once recovered, he provided a detailed statement describing how he had been supplied with MDMA by Bennett on 16 occasions since 2017.

This led to other offences coming to light: the police searched her home and found two mobile phones - one of them Bennett's personal iPhone, two sets of digital scales, which had traces of MDMA on them, and £150 in cash.

34 mg of MDMA was also found in her car.

Outlining the case for the prosecution, Advocate Chris Baglin said: “On reviewing the iPhone it transpired that [Bennett] had been supplying various MDMA tablets and powder on a weekly basis for the previous five years. 

“There are two messages sent by the Defendant on 22 January 2016, which demonstrate the extent of her drug dealing:

 “... is minted Ive sold him like 2 grand of drugs maybe more since beginning of December […] Yeah he always gets like 30 pills then the next weekend he will get like another 10 and I sold him sooo much Mandy Iv never seen so much drugs”.

“The Defendant has been supplying drugs to an extensive number of contacts from her telephone on a weekly basis since 2015. Numerous individuals within this period have also been asking the Defendant for drugs and most of the time she was able to fulfil the requests.”

Two dealer lists found on the phone revealed a client list of more than 35 individuals, who had been sold at least ten different types of ecstasy.

Analysis of Bennett’s bank accounts revealed that she had almost £20,700 of unexplained income. To make that money based on selling powder and tablets equally, a police expert concluded that Bennett would have had to have sold 104g of MDMA powder, if at £100 per gram, and 414 ecstasy pills, if at £25 per tablet.

Advocate Baglin added: “It cannot be quantified exactly how much of each commodity she has sold. The police state that the unexplained figure of £20,693 is likely to be significantly higher as it is highly unlikely she has deposited all of her profits from supplying drugs into her bank account.”

Pictured: Advocate James Bell.

Defending Bennett, Advocate James Bell said that his client had entered early guilty pleas and helped the police with their investigation by providing her mobile phone password and giving them sight of her bank accounts. 

“I urge the Court to take account of her spirit of cooperation; she acknowledges that she has done wrong and wants to make things right,” he said, adding that Bennet accepts that she supplied drugs to friends and that there was no evidence of her living a lavish lifestyle as a consequence.

He added that Bennett had no previous drug-related convictions, a stable record of employment and she had “turned her life around” since being arrested. 

Passing sentence, Deputy Bailiff Robert MacRae, who was sitting with Jurats Crill, Olsen and Hughes, said: “The Court accepts the police drug expert’s view that you were a prolific dealer. It was also clear that you were reasonably close to your own dealers, as you were able to sell drugs of high purity.

“However, we also note you intend to make maximise use of resources in custody and to live lawful life when you are released.

“You are also a hardworking young woman who is only aged 27, and without your cooperation, the prosecution would not have succeeded. Therefore we reduce the Crown’s recommended five years in prison to four years.”

The Court also made a confiscation order of £17,775, which will be paid for by the seizure of Bennett’s assets, including unaccounted-for cash and her car.