Client receives suspended sentence for PWITS Class A

Case study summary

We were approached by our client's mother when she became concerned that her son would go to prison after he received four serious drugs charges. We prepared extensive mitigation and instructed a barrister to advocate. Owing to our work, he received a suspended sentence.

Case study

Our client was a young man at the time he was stopped and arrested by police for supplying class A and B drugs. The investigation then took almost three years to reach a court, at which time our client had been struggling to progress and move on with his life.

When he finally received his first court date, our client's mother contacted our firm to represent him during his sentencing at the Crown Court.

Our client explained that he had been struggling to pay off a drug debt at the time and was trying to do this by dealing for those he owed the debt to.

We immediately began preparation on our client’s background and what had led to his offending to prepare mitigation. As we did this, it became clear that the effect of the investigation and the wait between being arrested and appearing in court had a substantial toll on our client. He was scared to make any long-term decisions because of the fear of going to prison.

Since the arrest our client had no further involvement with police and had found steady work. He had stopped taking drugs and was working hard to remain positive about the situation.

In preparation for the hearing we instructed a specialist barrister to speak on our client’s behalf at court.

During the hearing, our client’s case was explained to the judge to demonstrate the effort our client had put into moving forwards with his life, his good behaviour before and after his arrest, and the significant delay between his arrest and sentencing.

The judge was persuaded by our arguments and gave our client a suspended sentence rather than sending him straight to prison. Which allowed our client to finally come out from under the shadow of this case and move forwards with his life.