A teenage "coke mule" who was branded as "immature" brought thousands of pounds worth of drugs from Liverpool to North Wales.
Chloe Douglas, of Wickham Close in Seacombe, was said to have been "preyed upon by drug dealers and gang members" during the Covid-19 pandemic. The then-teenager brought in drugs from Anfield to North Wales in 2020 when she was promised £250 for finishing the job.
Appearing at Caernarfon Crown Court on her 22nd birthday on Wednesday, it was heard that at an earlier hearing, she admitted being in possession of crack cocaine with intent to supply, North Wales Live reports. Nick Williams, prosecuting, said a then 19-year-old Douglas was tasked with transporting around 22g of cocaine to Bangor on June 26, 2020.
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Despite making it there, police stopped a red Vauxhall Astra on Menai Avenue and the drugs were recovered before they could reach their destination. Mr Williams said Douglas was in the front passenger seat of the vehicle, which was being driven by her mother.
Upon a search, North Wales Police found 238 wraps of cocaine under the steering wheel, but she denied knowing about the drugs, which had a street value of around £2,380. The court heard how Douglas claimed she was headed to Bangor to meet up with a man she'd spoken to on Snapchat.
However, mobile phone analysis showed her intentions as one message to a friend said Douglas was "off to do bad things" by taking the cocaine to North Wales, adding "there's a lot of it" paired with smiling emojis.
Mr Williams said Douglas had also spoken to her boyfriend during the journey, in which he jokingly called her a "coke mule" as she replied: "that's one way to put it".
The court heard how she was interviewed by the police again and, this time, accepted she was transporting drugs but was under the impression it was going to be cannabis. Defence counsel Andrew McInnes, said Douglas played a lesser role in what was obviously a much larger conspiracy.
He accepted that she put "elements of bravado” forward to friends but knew that what she was doing was wrong. Judge Nicola Saffman chose not to send Douglas to prison and suspended her 18 month custodial term.
She was ordered to complete a 40-day rehabilitation activity. Branding the young woman's actions as naïve and stupid, the judge said it was clear that Douglas had been influenced by people she had met on the internet.
She added: "Because of your immaturity and vulnerability, you wouldn't have known you were actually being preyed upon by drug dealers and gang members in order to bring drugs into North Wales during the Covid-19 pandemic." The judge urged the defendant to take full advantage of the chance she had been granted by the courts.
She said that the suspended sentence would give Douglas the support needed to build up her resilience in the hope that "she'll never end up in this situation again where a man has persuaded her to break the law".
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