A Canberra man once likened to the Incredible Hulk has avoided time behind bars for drug trafficking, in part because COVID-19 restrictions prevent visitors from entering the ACT's jail.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A recently published ACT Supreme Court judgment reveals that Christopher John Butler, 41, acted as a drug courier in an exchange that took place in Mitchell in April 2018.
Butler gave a man 1982 tablets containing the hallucinogenic drug MDA, in exchange for $14,000. The estimated street value of the pills was $49,550.
Justice John Burns accepted that Butler only delivered the drugs and collected the payment as a favour for a co-offender, who is not named in the judgment.
He found that Butler was not paid personally for his efforts.
"That does not mean, however, that the offence is trivial," Justice Burns said.
"You plainly knew that you were delivering a relatively large quantity of tablets, which were illicit drugs ... While you were not expecting to personally profit from this transaction, you were nevertheless an indispensable part of a significant drug trafficking event."
A little more than two weeks after the Mitchell transaction, Butler was arrested at Sydney Airport with $2875 in cash, a mobile phone and Rolex jewellery believed to worth more than $55,000 on him.
Police subsequently searched Butler's home in the Belconnen suburb of Macquarie, finding bags that contained up to $98,000 worth of cocaine and about $22,000 worth of MDMA, or ecstasy.
Butler's DNA and fingerprints were identified on the bags.
Justice Burns said he could only be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Butler was guarding these drugs for others, who intended to sell them.
The judge found no evidence of Butler being personally involved in selling drugs to "end users", or of unexplained wealth suggesting Butler had a continuing involvement in drug trafficking.
Justice Burns said he had been presented with proof that Butler had bought the expensive jewellery he was wearing at the airport long before April 2018.
"The warehousing and guarding of illicit drugs for the purpose of making it more difficult for police to locate the drugs and to prosecute those who own the drugs is also an important link in the chain of drug supply," Justice Burns told Butler at sentencing.
"While it is important to identify the role you played in trafficking these drugs as less serious than one of personal involvement in sale to others, it should not be assumed that your role was trivial."
Butler pleaded guilty last year to three counts of drug trafficking.
He appeared before Justice Burns for sentencing in May after being assessed as suitable for intensive correction order, which is a jail sentence served in the community rather than behind bars.
Justice Burns sentenced Butler to 23 months in jail, but ordered it be served by way of an intensive correction order "after much deliberation and some misgivings".
The judge said he had taken into account factors including that inmates at Canberra's Alexander Maconochie Centre were unable to receive visitors face-to-face because of restrictions designed to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Justice Burns accepted that the order was more lenient than full-time imprisonment, but said he would "increase the punitive effect" by making Butler subject to a nightly curfew and ordering him to complete 249 hours of community service within a year.
Butler has previously served time behind bars for a standover job in which he tried to extort $60,000 from a Fyshwick businessman.
