Sports bag fingerprints scuppered £230k cannabis plot

Friday 16 December 2022

A man whose plot to supply £230,000-worth of cannabis was rumbled when police found his fingerprints on a sports bag containing around 7kg of the drug has been sentenced to more than four years behind bars.

Appearing in the Royal Court yesterday, Ian Stuart Richomme also admitted behaving in a threatening way and using threatening words, for which he was sentenced to an additional four weeks and eight weeks respectively.

It was decided that these two additional prison sentences were to be served concurrently with each other but consecutively to the drugs sentence, bringing Richomme's prison sentence to a total of four years and 21 weeks.

Laying out the facts of the case, Crown Advocate Lauren Hallam explained that a sports bag was handed in to Plat Douet school after being found outside the premises. A member of staff checked inside the bag and called the police when she saw its contents.

Laying out the facts of the case, Crown Advocate Lauren Hallam explained that a sports bag was handed in to Plat Douet School after being found outside the premises. A member of staff checked inside the bag and called the police when she saw its contents.

Pictured: Richomme was sentenced in the Royal Court on Thursday.

Police found that the sports bag contained a plastic bag of clothes, a massage gun, cans of a beer, and almost 7kg of cannabis in various forms.

Fingerprints were found inside the sports bag and on the massage gun which matched those of Richomme.

Richomme handed himself into the Police Station at the request of police, and was charged with possessing and intending to supply cannabis with an estimated street value of £230,000.

At a two-day trial in September, Richomme maintained that he had found the sports bag on the street and had picked it up to use it to carry his possessions.

He said that he then “chucked it” in fear of being arrested once he realised that the bag also contained drugs.

However, Richomme was found guilty at the trial and has since been remanded in custody.

The two other offences were committed in the summer whilst Richomme was on bail from the Royal Court for the drugs offence. 

On the evening of 10 July, Richomme was denied entry to a club in town as he was barred. 

He became aggressive, and footage from a body-worn camera showed him shouting threats at the doorman as his girlfriend pulled him back.

The doorman said: “I genuinely think that if his girlfriend hadn’t been there then there would have been a brawl.”

“I’ve meet numerous aggressive people in my time on the door, but I think [Richomme] is the worst,” he added.

Richomme was charged with one count of threatening or abusive behaviour for this offence, which he pled guilty to.

On 15 August, Richomme received a call from his girlfriend informing him that her patio doors had been smashed in. He went round to his girlfriend’s home and called the person who he believed to be responsible. 

A neighbour heard Richomme shouting and took a video recording, which was played in court. In the audio, Richomme can be heard yelling a torrent of abuse down the phone, including threats such as: “I will knock you out” and “choke” your girlfriend.

Crown Advocate Hallam described this phone call – which also included bomb threats and threats of sexual assault – as “abusive and explicitly threating”.

Calling for a total sentence of four years and 23 weeks imprisonment for the three offences, Advocate Hallam said that Richomme’s behaviour was “unpleasant and highly abusive”.

She added that the large quantity of drugs found in February “could only have been a commercial amount of drugs” which showed his “trusted role within the drug trafficking community”.

Advocate Hallam explained that Richomme had 41 previous convictions, which meant that he was at “very high risk of reconviction”.

She said that the defendant had “partly resigned himself to the fact that his life will never change”.

Pictured: Advocate Stephen Wauchope was defencing Richomme.

Defending, Advocate Stephen Wauchope argued that the court had no evidence to prove what Richomme’s role in the drug supply chain was. 

Advocate Wauchope said that there was “no evidence of any retail sale or attempt to sell any drugs” and “no evidence of drugs being packaged for sale”.

He added that there was also no evidence of Richomme making communication with individuals wanting to buy drugs, and no cash or unusual bank transactions that would indicate any drug sales.

Advocate Wauchope said that this suggested that Richomme was a “mere custodian, minder or courier” of the drugs, and was therefore “not a trusted member of the drug trafficking community”.

Despite a “formidable list” of previous convictions, Advocate Wauchope said this his client’s only other drugs offence was for possession of a small amount of cannabis when he was just a teenager.

Advocate Wauchope also described Richomme’s “horrific and appalling background”.

He said that Richomme’s “formative years were so crowded with misery, bereavement, abuse and neglect, that he must be considered an exceptional case even in this court”.

He explained that his client witness and experience “domestic abuse daily” as a child, describing Richomme as a “man who has never had any appropriate adult to love and learn from”.

Advocate Wauchope argued that his client still had the “benefit of youth”, with “time to mature and change”. He said that Richomme now had an encouraging partner and wanted to support his family "in the way he wasn’t supported himself as a child”.

Sentencing Richomme to four years and 13 weeks' imprisonment for the drugs offence, Deputy Bailiff Robert McRae described the three offences as “very serious”.

Addressing Richomme directly, the Deputy Bailiff added: “We hope that you continue to make the progress that you have so far in custody, and you put this behind you when you are released.”

Deputy Bailiff Robert McRae was sitting with Jurats Crill, Ronge, Dulake, Averty, Le Cornu, Cornish and Le Heuze.