Man walks over drugs charges due to ‘peculiar circumstances’

A Gold Coast man who travelled to the US to post meth back to himself in Australia has walked from court due to the strange circumstances of the case.

Mitchell Paul Wilcox leaves Brisbane Supreme Court on Thursday. Picture: NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

A Gold Coast man who travelled to the US to post meth back to himself in Australia has walked from court due to the strange circumstances of the case.

Mitchell Paul Wilcox, 32, pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of importing a commercial quantity of border controlled drugs back in 2018.

Brisbane’s Supreme Court heard Wilcox travelled to the US three times in 2018 and posted two packages to Australia to addresses associated with people he knew before taking delivery of them.

A few days after taking possession of the drugs Wilcox was intercepted by police in NSW who found 856 grams of pure methamphetamine hidden in photo albums in his car.

He was sentenced to six years’ jail with four years non-parole in NSW for supplying drugs and proceeds of crime ($790), which were all related to the meth importation.

Commonwealth prosecutor Catherin Marley accepted there was considerable overlap between the NSW charges and the offences he was currently before the court on and submitted no actual jail time would be appropriate given the “peculiar circumstances”.

Barrister Patrick Wilson said his client began using drugs young and meth “took hold of him” from age 17.

He said Wilcox’s imprisonment in NSW had broken the cycle of addiction and his client now had a leadership role at work and was looking to start a family.

Justice Lincoln Crawley said it was serious offending despite not being “overly sophisticated”.

He accepted Wilcox was remorseful and had demonstrated significant rehabilitation.

“A lot’s changed,” he said

Justice Crawley said delay and totality, given Wilcox’s jail time in NSW, were significant factors in sentencing.

Wilcox was sentenced to three years’ jail with immediate release on a three-year $500 good behaviour bond.

Originally published as Man walks over drugs charges due to ‘peculiar circumstances’