Mercedes-driving DJ said drugs were for him, until police raided his Leeds home and found £4,000 stash
A dealing music DJ pulled over by police claimed the drugs in his Mercedes were for personal use, until officers raided his home and found a £4,000 stash.
Ashley Harper was stopped by police on July 27 because the insurance on the car showed only a female driver on the policy, Leeds Crown Court heard.
He told them it was a friend’s car, but with a strong smell of cannabis from the vehicle they conducted a search and found a pot of cocaine and two mobile phones, one which kept pinging with drug requests.
The 22-year-old was taken to the station where he was strip searched and more drugs were found.
The next day they searched his home on Charlton Road, Burmantofts, and found more than £2,800 in cash, another Nokia “burner”phone, along with 87 blue MDMA pills worth up to £435, 237 grammes of cannabis worth £2,370 and cocaine worth almost £1,500.
During his police interview he claimed he was on his way to a party and the drugs found on him were for him. However, he “became nervous” when they told him they had searched his home, prosecutor Katherine Robinson told the court.
He later admitted two counts of dealing in Class A drugs, one of Class B and possessing criminal property. He has previous convictions for dealing in Class B drugs.
Mitigating, Nick Murphy, said Harper had worked as a music DJ and was “not without promise” who had now seen the “error of his ways”.
He said: “He recognises the pain that drug dealing causes. He is really ashamed of what he has done and ashamed for putting his family through everything that has happened.
“He has taken the wrong course and made some very bad decisions, but that’s not to say he is not capable of making the right decision in future.”
A probation report read to the court said Harper had been “candid”, even offering up more detail than asked of him, which Judge Harry Crowson praised.
Judge Crowson said that it encouraged him that Harper wanted to put the drugs trade “behind him”.
As a result he reduced his sentence, jailing him for 32 months.