University student caught with £750 worth of drugs is spared jail

Vito Gueli-Parkin, 20, said that he had the drugs for his personal use and to deal to close friends only, Leeds Crown Court was told.

Prosecuting, Joseph Bell said police had been patrolling on March 21 last year when they came across two parked cars at Walton Colliery Nature Reserve.

One of the vehicles was empty, but the other - a Seat Ibiza belonging to Gueli-Parkin - contained four males.

When the patrol car pulled alongside, the four males got out and the officers could smell cannabis.

Gueli-Parkin had a silver bag containing a quantity of cannabis, and during a search of the vehicle, cannabis, a cannabis grinder and rolled joints were found.

He told officers that he was holding the drugs for a friend, then said it for his own use during lockdown.

When asked if he was dealing drugs, he told the officers he would sell some to close pals but was not a dealer.

After his arrest, police searched his home on Hill Top Road, Newmillerdam, and at the back of the wardrobe in his bedroom found a bag containing 379 diazepam tablets and 47 tablets with a Batman logo printed on them.

They turned out to be 2C-B tablets, a Class A, powerful hallucinogenic designer drug.

Along with the cannabis, the total street value of the drugs found was £754.

He admitted three charges of possession with an intent to supply. The court was told that Gueli-Parkin had no previous convictions.

Mitigating, Angus McDonald said: "He is remorseful. He has a supportive family and his mother is horrified by these proceedings.

"He is a university student struggling to finish his dissertation in his final year."

Judge Neil Clark accepted that he was only intending to sell to his friends after his mobile phone showed only drug-related messages to people that he knew.

He said: "You are not a sophisticated dealer but you were supplying to people you knew.

"Class A drugs wreck people's life and the courts take it very seriously.

"You have a future, and you almost threw it away."

He gave him a two-year sentence, suspended for two years, and 180 hours of unpaid work.