SENTENCING STATEMENTS

Lord Harrower told Murphy on sentencing:

“Jason Murphy, on 28 November 2024, at Edinburgh High Court, you tendered a plea of guilty under section 76 procedure to an indictment libelling a single charge of being concerned in the supply of a Class A controlled drug, namely cocaine, contrary to s4(3)(b) of the Misuse of Drugs (Scotland) Act 1971.

On Tuesday 11th April 2023, police received intelligence that a male driving a Black BMW was involved in the supply of controlled drugs at a storage unit in Mitchelston Drive, Kirkcaldy.  At about 7:30 pm, police officers attended at the unit, and observed the BMW entering the car park.  You got out of the car and made your way to the front entrance.  The police approached and detained you.  When cautioned, you replied, “I’m f***ed”, and dropped a green Aldi bag containing two taped blocks of white powder.  When analysed each block was found to contain approximately 1kg of importation quality cocaine.  Specialist police officers have assessed their combined street value at between £273,000 and £437,280. 

It is clear that you were experiencing a variety of stresses at the time of the offence, and I have taken full account of that. However, you were also experiencing these same or similar stresses over the course of a lengthy period of several years prior to the offence. This was a period during which, despite suffering from poor mental health, you appear to have managed to abstain from offending of any kind.  Indeed, your only previous conviction dates back to 2016, and was for a relatively minor driving offence. As a result, it is unclear to me to what extent any of these stresses caused or materially contributed to your decision to commit the specific offence of which you have been convicted. 

Indeed, by the time of your offence, there were other more positive and stabilising influences in your life.  Your parents, with whom you were living, have been supportive.  On one occasion, in 2022, they even paid off your credit card debt.  The desk job may not have suited you, but your employer was also supportive, paying for you to have therapy.  And since it appears that you had met your present partner about six weeks prior to the offence, this relationship too, which appears to have blossomed, would have been another good thing in your life.  It is clear from the report that you are very anxious about the prospect of receiving a custodial sentence.  However, I am unable to find in the psychologist’s report any clear answer to the question she was asked to consider, namely, whether any particular “stressors” might have led to your offending.  This may not be particularly surprising, since there is little discussion within the report of the circumstances of the offence itself, and how you came to be concerned in the supply of such a large quantity of Class A drugs. 

The psychologist’s report is now rather out of date, and I deferred sentence in order to obtain a social work report.  That report provides a little more context to your offending.  You stated that there was a “pre-arranged plan to deliver [the drugs] to a storage unit in Kirkcaldy”.  You state that you didn’t have many friends and were lonely.  You began buying and selling clothes online in order to meet new friends.  However, it became apparent that they were involved in criminal activity and encouraged you to join in.  The social worker acknowledges that typically an offence of this nature will be financially motivated.  However, she makes no mention of the debts or money worries that you had disclosed to the psychologist.  Rather, she concludes that your main motivation for being concerned in the supply of large quantities of cocaine potentially worth almost half a million pounds was to form friendships and feel accepted.  I do not find that explanation persuasive, and I am not convinced that you have provided a full explanation of the circumstances of your offending. 

In other respects, the report is in positive terms.  You take sole responsibility for the offence, for which you have expressed sincere remorse.  You have acknowledged the extensive and devastating effect that drugs have on individuals, families and whole communities.  The social worker reports that at no point during the interview did she form the impression that you failed to understand the seriousness of what you had done. 

I have taken account of everything submitted on your behalf by Ms Forrest.  I have taken account also of the testimonials submitted by your employers and by your partner.  I am particularly impressed by the fact that, despite your health difficulties, you have managed to hold down a full-time job for so many years.  Not only that, you have proved that you have been, and can return to being, both a valued employee and someone who has made a positive contribution to society. 

However, I am not persuaded that anything other a significant custodial sentence is appropriate for this offence.  I appreciate that such a sentence will inevitably have an impact on your relationships, your family, and in particular your son.  Whilst there is no information before me to suggest that your health difficulties cannot be managed from within a custodial setting, I acknowledge that a prison sentence is likely to have a greater impact on you than it would have on someone not burdened by similar concerns.  There is therefore substantial mitigation in your case, meaning that your sentence will be less than it might otherwise have been.  Were it not for the timing of your plea, I would have sentenced you to a period of imprisonment of 4 years.  Taking the timing of your plea into account, it will be reduced to a period of 32 months, beginning from today.”

9 January 2025