AN ADDICT was jailed for 16 months after dealing heroin near a busy tourist spot.
Peter Tomlinson, 30, of Grosvenor Street, Chester, was caught on CCTV passing a small wrap of heroin to a friend in exchange for £10 at midday on June 6 near The Cross in Chester.
Tomlinson was clearly seen wearing a tracksuit and a black cap on the Rows at the corner of Bridge Street and Watergate Street, tying up his shoe after giving the friend a small brown package from it.
The CCTV operator contacted the police, who caught Tomlinson in Watergate Street with another small wrap, worth about £10, in his left shoe.
Judge Thomas Teague said: “It’s a single deal of a small quantity. He is a person with a long history of abuse of substances and not a commercial dealer. It’s the lowest category for this type of offence.”
Simon Parry, defending, said: “It’s a mark of the difficulty he is having with his addiction and the destruction that heroin is bringing to his life. It’s had a dramatic impression on his family.”
Tomlinson was sentenced to 16 months for supplying for heroin and four months, to run consecutively, for possession of the Class A opiate.
The judge added: “Yours is an offence of supplying heroin to another person and possession of a small quantity of heroin in the middle of the day right in the middle of the city centre, which I think is an aggravating factor.
“In these circumstances, the court is driven to the conclusion that there must be an immediate custodial sentence.”
