Two men facing drugs charges were labelled “clowns” today after a judge heard a seized mobile phone contained a video of the pair “with large amounts of drugs and large amounts of counterfeit money”.
The comment was made as the pair appeared before the Magistrate’s Court in Derry on Wednesday. The phone, the court heard, also contained details of the names of other people who allegedly worked for the two defendants and evidence of £11,000 payments for cocaine and £5,000 payments for cannabis.
One of the defendants, aged 30, faces a total of 20 charges alleging his involvement in supplying cocaine and cannabis from January of last year until his arrest when police officers stopped and searched a car in Rossville Street in the Bogside area of the city on Tuesday morning. His 31-year-old co-defendant who has previous drugs convictions is charged with possessing a single diazepam tablet which was found on him when the car was stopped.
A police witness told District Judge Barney McElholm that the 20 charges against the 30-year-old defendant resulted from a search of his home last June under the Misuse Of Drugs Act when his mobile phone was seized and forensically examined.
The officer said: “He is suspected of being heavily involved in drugs dealing in the Londonderry area and central to his drugs dealing is his mobile phone. The police managed to access his mobile phone and on it found that it contained substantial evidence that he’s heavily involved in supplying, offering to supply and being concerned in supplying Class A, B and C drugs from January 2023 to this month.
“The police investigators also found on the phone a video which shows both suspects with Class A drugs and flaunting a large amount of counterfeit Euros all of which have the same serial number. It also contained the names of people who we believe worked for them as well as evidence of £5,000 payments for cannabis and £11,000 payments for cocaine.
“Bail is objected to because we believe there is a risk of both men interfering with the course of justice and of re-offending.”
The District Judge granted anonymity applications for both defendants due to the ongoing threat against alleged drugs dealers from dissident republican paramilitaries in the city.
“We all wish this general threat did not exist but it does”, he said.
“So these two clowns are running around together taking photographs of themselves with large amounts of drugs and large amounts of counterfeit money. I don’t need to waste any further time on them, they can go to the High Court,” he added.
Mr McElholm said the two defendants were certainly not kingpins “but for a machine to work all the smallest of cogs must work and the small cogs are a necessary part of the operation”.
Bail was refused and both defendants were remanded in custody and the case was adjourned to December 12.
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