A teenage drug dealer tried to smuggle class-A drugs into a music festival - by hiding them in his boxer shorts.
Derby Crown Court heard 18-year-old Ethan Taylor-Smith was caught by a sniffer dog as he tried to bring 26 grey MDMA tablets into the Y-Not Festival in Derbyshire last year.
DerbyshireLive reports as well as the tablets marked with the Duracell battery logo he had 47 red tablets with a Louis Vuitton logo, which were not illegal substances but which Taylor-Smith intended to sell to festival-goers as ecstasy.
A search of the home he shares with his parents in Newhall, Swadlincote, uncovered cannabis and ketamine, an anaesthetic used as an illegal high.
And analysis of the 18-year-old’s phone found messages appeared to show that he had been dealing drugs for the previous four months.
Handing him a 20-month custodial sentence, suspended for two years, Judge Shaun Smith QC said: “You were 17 years old when you got involved in class A drugs and make no mistake it is only your age, predominantly, which is saving you from receiving an immediate custodial sentence.
“God knows why young people think it is safe to take MDMA because it is clear from many recent tragedies it is not.”
Sniffer dog
Abigail Hill, prosecuting, said the offence took place at the festival in Pikehall on July 27 last year.
She said Taylor-Smith was stopped as he tried to get into the event when a sniffer dog indicated to its handler a positive hit for drugs.
Mrs Hill said: “Grey tablets and red tablets were in his boxer shorts.
“The grey tablets were MDMA and the red ones were not but when asked he said his intention to pass them off as ecstasy to people at the festival.”
Mrs Hill said once the drugs were discovered police carried out a raid at his address in Hilton Close, where the other drugs were found.
She said his iPhone was seized and on it were messages which included customers asking for “bud” and “pills” relating to cannabis and ecstasy.
Taylor-Smith, a college student who was supported by a number of family and friends in court, pleaded guilty to charges of supplying a class A drug to another, possession with intent to supply class A drugs and possession of drugs.
As well as the suspended sentence, Judge Smith ordered him to carry out 180 hours unpaid work and handed him a curfew confining him to his home address each evening between 7pm and 7am for the next six months.
'Devastated supportive family'
Will Bennett, mitigating, said his client came from a “supportive” family who were “devastated” when they discovered the extent of his criminality.
Mr Bennett said: “He starts off by using drugs at music festivals starting with cannabis and leading to experimentation with MDMA.
“It is an expensive habit and so he starts selling drugs to pay for that and for financial gain.
“This is someone that is chronically naive and who received threats from someone higher up the chain after getting into a drugs debt.”
