Drug dealer sent to jail

1:49pm Monday 11th August 2008

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A drug dealer spared jail by a judge received an "unduly lenient" sentence and should have been locked up, London's Court of Appeal ruled today.

Top judges handed Aaron Lesley Preston, of Jersey Road, Rose Hill, Oxford, a two-and-a-half-year jail term following a challenge by England and Wales's top law officer, the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland QC.

Her lawyers argued Preston's sentence for possession of cocaine with intent to supply fell well outside official guidelines and sent out the wrong message to the public.

At Oxford Crown Court in May this year, he received a four-month term of imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and was ordered to carry out a drug testing and training order for 12 months, and be supervised in the community for 12 months.

Observing that Preston, 28, had not made good progress since the orders were imposed, Lord Justice Toulson said he would have received longer than the two-and-a-half years he must now serve had it not been for "double jeopardy", the fact he was effectively being sentenced twice.

The judge, sitting with Mr Justice Andrew Smith and Judge John Rogers QC, said that Preston was stopped by police in Oxford on November 3, 2007, at about 6.30pm, after he was seen acting suspiciously.

A number of packages containing cocaine were seized, as well as cash and two mobile phones.

At his home, officers seized drug paraphernalia, and tests of the drugs found in the packages, and at his home, revealed that he was in possession of about 50g of cocaine.

When he pleaded guilty at the first opportunity, Preston said that he had dealt drugs in order to fund his own heroin and crack cocaine habit.