‘Bulge in his pants’: Serial drug offender stashes meth under scrotum

A violent serial drug offender will spend the next few months in prison after “poorly” hiding a drug trafficker’s methamphetamines haul in a sensitive location.

Patrick Lloyd Swayn, 48, jailed for hiding meth stash under his scrotum.

A violent serial drug offender will spend the next few months in prison after “poorly” hiding a drug trafficker’s methamphetamines haul in a sensitive location.

Patrick Lloyd Swayn, 48, was on parole and a suspended sentence when he was busted in the company of a drug trafficker driving around Rockhampton at 11.50pm on August 11, 2022.

When sentencing Swayn, Justice Graeme Crow said police were targeting the drug trafficker and had received information they had picked up a meth haul and were driving from Gladstone to Rockhampton that day.

He said police came across a vehicle the trafficker had been driving on a prior occasion and found Swayn in the passenger seat.

Justice Crow said Swayn “poorly” hid 101.467 grams of substance, which contained 72.967g of pure meth, under his “scrotum”.

Defence barrister Scott Lynch said the drugs were “readily apparent from the bulge the police saw” in his client’s pants.

The court heard Swayn had started using drugs when he was as early as 17 years old and found marijuana dulled the chronic pain he experienced after being shot in the stomach, leading to using the stronger and highly addictive methamphetamines in an attempt to numb the pain.

Swayn pleaded guilty to one count of possessing more than two grams of a schedule one drug.

The court heard Swayn’s seven-page criminal record contained convictions for producing drugs, grievous bodily harm, supplying drugs, possessing drugs, threatening violence and entering a dwelling at night in company.

Swayn was convicted of producing dangerous drugs in 2011 where he was involved in an enterprise with three others, but police had seen Swayn direct the other much younger people involved.

Swayn was sentenced in May 2022 for offering to supply $50 of marijuana on April 30, 2019, then one gram of methamphetamines to a different person on August 20, 2020, and an unknown amount of marijuana to a third person on December 15, 2020.

He was convicted in 2015 of grievous bodily harm after breaking a man’s jaw, and again in 1998 after a nightclub assault left the victim with an open brain injury that left him a chronic invalid.

The father of five is the carer of his brother who sustained severe burns in March 2022, with both of their parents dying from cancer within nine months of each other in 2021.

Mr Lynch said since being released from presentence custody of 238 days in April 2023, Swayn had worked for a builder.

Justice Crow sentenced Swayn to a two years and four months prison term, taking into account but not declaring his presentence custody where he served out a prior sentence.

He granted Swayn immediate parole eligibility and extended the operational period of the May 2022 12-month prison suspended sentence.