Frustrated Leeds judge blasts 'inexcusable' delay that allowed Nissan-driving dealer to walk from court

Judge Simon Batiste said the the situation was “wholly unacceptable” after Fallie Biasonama was caught almost three years ago selling cocaine, MDMA and ketamine in Leeds, and with more than £2,200 in his possession.

Despite early guilty pleas, the delay in bringing the case to Leeds Crown Court meant the judge was obliged to take the time into account, and whether he had committed any further offences since, which he had not.

He told the 22-year-old that he would have handed at a three-year immediate jail sentence had it been dealt with sooner, but instead gave him a suspended sentence.

He said: “There was a failure to charge you for two-and-a-half years, which is regrettable. It’s also regrettable that a case involving someone of your age, charged with relatively simple matters, has taken this long to come to court. I can't see any reasonable excuse for it.

"Justice is not done if someone is languishing for two-and-a-half years. If you had been charged expeditiously you would be going to prison today, but there has been an inexcusable delay in this case. You are, it would appear, a different young man who committed those offences.”

Prosecutor Emma Handley told the court that police had been patrolling Cardigan Road in Headingley in the early hours of November 20, 2020, when they spotted man stood at the side of the road before he flagged down a Nissan Juke and got in.

They pulled alongside and asked the driver, Biasonama, and the man to get out. They found MDMA, ketamine and cocaine worth hundreds of pounds on Biasonama. They also found cannabis but he was never charged in relation to that drug, which was also questioned by Judge Batiste.

They also found two phones on him, but he refused to give the PIN codes to police to access them. He also gave a no-comment interview. Officers searched his home address and found the £2,205 in cash.

He later admitted two counts of dealing in Class A drugs, and one of dealing in Class B. He has no previous convictions.

A pre-sentence report suggested Biasonama, of Lincoln Drive, Gledhow, had wanted to play professional football as a youngster, had struggled with his mental health and “fell in with the wrong crowd”, taking and then selling drugs.

He was only 19 at the time, said he had only been dealing dugs for a “month or two”, was more settled and in a relationship now and wanted to better himself by enrolling on a building course at college.

Judge Batiste handed him two years’ jail, suspended for two years, 250 hours of unpaid work and 10 rehabilitation days. He told him: “You have been exceptionally lucky today, people who deal in Class A drugs almost inevitably go to prison.”

For the record, he told the prosecutor that he was wanted his concerns over the delay to be relayed back to the Crown Prosecution Service.