Family drug business: Trafficking father and son learn fate

Wandal drug business operators slammed by Justice: ‘Many families have suffered because of what you have done’

Teej Williams.

WHEN a Wandal father and son duo entered the dock at the Rockhampton Supreme Court together on Monday to face charges for their sophisticated yet ill-fated drug business - one left a free man and the other left for a stint in prison.

The court heard Teej Lloyd Williams, 26, and his father Trevor John Williams, 56, ran a, drug trafficking business between July and September 2016.

The business was ultimately brought undone by telecommunications interceptions of Trevor Williams' phones by police.

The court found the business "operated at the higher-end of street-level and into wholesale level" with a turnover of about $84,580. It had as many as 20-25 customers with a total of 102 supplies recorded by police.

The business specialised in methamphetamine and cannabis but also dealt in other amphetamines and over its period of operation, pushed almost 5kg of cannabis and 135 grams of meth.

The pair made multiple threats to collect bad debts including property possession and threats of violence.

The court heard Teej Williams was quoted in an intercepted phone call to a third party saying "flog that c--- - get everything he has" in reference to $23,000 of bad drug debt, while Trevor Williams on another occasion was heard telling someone he would take possession of tools and other property if a debt wasn't paid.

The business used code language when dealing with customers including calling drugs 'eggs' and suppliers 'shops'.

The police operation that put an end to the family business slowly closed in on the pair as customers were caught one-by-one. It came to a head when police executed a search warrant of the Williams' family home.

During the raid on September 8, 2016, police found bags, used and unused, numerous phones, large sums of money, and homemade molotov cocktails. They also found that their cars had been converted to traffic drugs with hidden compartments.

In total, police found 27.495g meth and 7grams of cannabis during the search.

Justice Graeme Crow, while considering the sentences for the pair, weighed up the extent to which each of them were ­involved in the business.

Both men battle with respective mental and physical health issues which were also considered along with the stress imposed by the length of time between the initial charges and sentencing (four years).

Justice Crow said Trevor Williams, as the "proprietor", should have expected the outcome.

"You don't get to see what the courts see every day," he said.

"In this court, I have had families of persons that have been killed sitting at the back - killed for drug debts.

"That is the effect on the society, homes get broken into, violence is committed upon people … when people break into their houses to steal to fund their drug habits to pay people like you!

"You may have been doing it for your benefit and your family's benefit but many families have suffered because of what you have done."

Trevor Williams bore the brunt for the pair's misdoings with a sentence of five years imprisonment, on a total of five possession and traffic charges, with a release date at June 30, 2021.

His son, who was just 22 at the time of the offences, was given a second chance, but not without a stern warning from the court.

"You were very much the minor partner in the enterprise," Justice Crow conceded.

"This is your one and only chance, to get into this court (Supreme), you need to traffic dangerous drugs, commit a serious supply, or have possession of more than two grams. If that occurs before my court there won't be any second chances - mental health difficulties or not."

Teej Williams was released immediately on a three-year parole sentence for his one possession charge.

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