Bank records show Gladstone drug dealer Anthony John Robert Featherstone with 28 customers ‘minimum’

After a Gladstone man, who started using at just 16, was busted with a stash of meth, cocaine, cannabis and MDMA, police scoured through his bank records and messages. Here’s what they discovered.

A Queensland Police Service officer conducts an investigation. Generic photo.

Bank records showed that a man who claimed he was Gladstone’s “second biggest drug dealer” had 28 customers “minimum” - with some on-selling the meth he supplied.

Anthony John Robert Featherstone, 45, was last week sentenced to a jail term with parole eligibility in January 2023 after he pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court at Rockhampton to numerous drugs and weapons offences, the most serious being trafficking dangerous drugs.

Before Justice Graeme Crow handed down his sentence, he explained the extent of Featherstone’s client base.

“In addition to the 14 debtors... you had bank records which show that you had at least another 14 customers - so a minimum of 28 customers,” Justice Crow said.

“The messages found on your phone confirmed you were aware that some of your customers were on-selling the methamphetamine... you had a discussion with one of your customers who’d onsold half an ounce of methamphetamine for $2800.”

The court heard that on December 2, 2019, police caught Featherstone sitting in the front passenger seat of his father’s car and a search of that vehicle revealed commercial quantities of both methamphetamine and cocaine, along with other drugs and weapons.

The total amount of methamphetamine found was 119.594g pure and the total amount of cocaine found was 13.027g pure.

Cannabis (27g) and MDMA (ecstasy) was also found but the Crown accepted those drugs were for Featherstone’s own personal use.

The weapons found were a shortened, break-action combination shotgun, a rifle with no serial number, a taser, a flick-knife, as well as rounds of ammunition.

Six mobile phones and a laptop, which Featherstone admitted were his, were also seized.

Last week was the second time Featherstone had been sentenced for drug trafficking.

In relation to Featherstone’s background, the court heard he had started using dangerous drugs (cannabis) at age 16.

“You were a recreational user of that drug, and it seems that the use, occasionally of that drug, did not interfere with your ability to work for Cement Australia for about 20 years where you worked as a machine operator,” Justice Crow said.

“You had some time off work, you were made redundant, and then your marriage fell apart.

“And then you turned to the use of methamphetamine and things became predictably much, much worse for you.”

Before handing down a sentence, Justice Crow noted that Featherstone’s guilty plea meant a breach of a previous suspended sentence for drug trafficking.

Justice Crow ordered the two years and nine months left to run on that suspended sentence be activated, and be served on top of the imminent sentence.

For these offences, Featherstone was sentenced to seven years’ jail.

Justice Crow set a parole eligibility date of January 22, 2023, declaring 585 days’ pre-sentence custody as time served.