A man was looking for "a quick fix" for his problems when he agreed to receive a delivery of imported cocaine on behalf of a friend he called "Pooh", a court has heard.
Kyle Ian Christopher Wilson, 24, faced the ACT Supreme Court for a sentence hearing on Wednesday, having previously admitted attempting to possess a marketable quantity of a border-controlled drug.
The Gordon man has been behind bars on remand since November 2021, when Australian Border Force officers conducted X-rays on a package from Nigeria.
It had been declared as "weavon & eyelashes", but it in fact contained more than 700 grams of cocaine.
After the drugs had been substituted for an inert substance, a police officer posed as a courier and delivered the consignment to its intended destination.
Wilson, the occupant of the delivery address, accepted the parcel, which police found in his bedroom when they raided the place later the same day.
Following his arrest, Wilson told police he had suspected the package contained cocaine and said a friend, saved in his phone as "Pooh Shiesty that's my dawg", had promised him cash for accepting the delivery.
On Wednesday, Wilson's barrister, Rajiv Baldeo, told the court the 24-year-old had endured "a difficult life".
He described a childhood marred by domestic violence and bouts of homelessness, which had "unsurprisingly" resulted in "a significant problem with drugs" and a variety of mental health issues.
Mr Baldeo said it made "perfect sense" for someone affected by a combination of these factors to not have the same decision-making capacity as a person with a normal upbringing.
Wilson was also "facing several stressors" at the time in question, according to Mr Baldeo, who said it was in that context that the Gordon man had agreed to accept the delivery.
As he urged Justice Geoffrey Kennett to consider a community-based sentence of imprisonment, Mr Baldeo said Wilson had played an "extremely limited" role in the importation.
Prosecutor Katrina Musgrove pushed for full-time imprisonment, arguing Wilson's "complex developmental trauma" might explain a violent crime committed "in the heat of the moment".
But Ms Musgrove said it had little relevance in a case where intercepted communications proved Wilson had known for at least two weeks before the delivery arrived that it was coming from overseas.
The prosecutor said Wilson had therefore had time to think, but he had still agreed to accept the parcel because he thought his reward would be "a quick fix" and "an easy way out, to solve his problems".
Ms Musgrove also noted Wilson had a history of breaching community-based sentences, including two good behaviour orders imposed just six days before his arrest for this crime.
Justice Kennett will sentence Wilson at a later date.
