Meth cook Andrew Spurling jailed for a decade for drug offences
A drug addict who “wasted” his talents cooking meth will spend a decade behind bars after he was found inside a working Morphett Vale drug lab.
Police & Courts
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An addict who “wasted” his talents cooking meth has been jailed for more than a decade for his repeated drug offending – including his involvement in a “well-equipped functioning laboratory” capable of making “significant amounts” of methamphetamine.
Andrew John Leon Spurling, 47, was found in a granny flat at Morphett Vale in February 2022, a few metres from a working clandestine laboratory prosecutors said was in the process of making methamphetamine on a “multi-kilogram scale”.
Police seized equipment and various quantities of methamphetamine at the address, totalling about 290g which at the time was worth up to $70,000 if sold in ounces.
Large amounts of precursor substances ready for future batches of the drug, including iodine and hypophosphorous acid were also located at the property.
At the time of that offending Spurling was already on home detention bail for other drug offending after police searched a property at Lockleys in January 2021, locating 110g of methamphetamine, $6000 and 1kg of pseudoephedrine secreted in a rangehood. They also found a Takyo Marui airsoft imitation handgun.
Images from the police raids show chemistry text books and an instruction manual on making glassware were among the items uncovered.
In sentencing in the District Court, Judge Ian Press said Spurling was a drug addict who had told police he did not know how to stop using drugs, which was “both honest but concerning”.
“The use of drugs and your addiction have resulted in you wasting a degree of talent, education and intelligence,” he said.
“That you are willing to use your knowledge as regards to manufacturing methamphetamine to the detriment of the community is a matter I must take into account.
“Your long standing and deep seated issues with drug use, the associations you have made during that time and your need to fund your addiction, mean you are presently a danger to the community.”
He said it was clear the “well-equipped functioning laboratory” found at Morphett Vale “had the capacity to manufacture significant amounts of methylamphetamine”.
He said that in 2010 Spurling had been using up to 3.5g of methylamphetamine per day which was “clearly an expensive habit to fund”. Spurling had told the court he was being paid in methamphetamine for his role in the lab.
Judge Press noted Spurling had a lengthy history of jail terms for past drug offending dating back to the 1996, around the time he set up a hydroponic equipment business aged 19.
Spurling had pleaded guilty to multiple offences over the two raids including manufacturing methamphetamine, trafficking in a commercial quantity of methamphetamine and possessing a commercial quantity of a controlled precursor.
After discounts for those pleas, Judge Press jailed Spurling for 12 years and four months with a non-parole period of nine years, 10 months and 13 days.
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