Lily Francis Hounslow allegedly busted with 2kg meth, cocaine on Bruce Highway

A former real estate agent, allegedly busted with more than $2 million worth of drugs on Queensland’s major highway, has offered up a time-sensitive excuse for her case to be delayed.

Lily Hounslow is accused of running $2million worth of drugs up the Bruce Highway.

A young Qld woman, allegedly busted with more than $2 million of drugs on the Bruce Highway, wants to wait to be sent to jail until after she has given birth, a court has heard.

Lily Francis Hounslow’s two charges – one of possessing more than 200 grams of a schedule one drug and the other of possessing less than 200g of a schedule one drug – were mentioned in the Supreme Court in Rockhampton on Tuesday.

Crown Prosecutor Joshua Phillips said Ms Hounslow was alleged to have been in possession of about two kilograms of methamphetamine on Rockhampton’s Neville Hewitt Bridge, which was on the Bruce Highway route.

He said she was also accused of being in possession of about 250 grams of cocaine.

Ms Hounslow’s defence lawyer Calvin Gnech said his client was pregnant and wanted to hold off sentencing until after she gave birth so she could organise her affairs for the child.

“It’s quite obvious that my client’s at significant risk of imprisonment,” Mr Gnech said, telling the court the due date was early August.

Mr Phillips argued there was no strong basis to delay the sentence until later this year or early next year.

“Pregnancy is not an uncommon matter that prison services need to grapple with,” he said.

Mr Gnech asked for further time to respond to Mr Phillips’s submissions against the delay of sentencing proceedings.

Ms Hounslow was previously granted bail in the Supreme Court in Brisbane in November 2022.

Details of Ms Hounslow’s intercept by police were revealed in court documents viewed by the Courier Mail after that bail application.

They stated the former cafe manager spent 18 days behind bars after she was arrested in Rockhampton on October 20 when police pulled her over as she was driving a silver-coloured Volkswagen Amarok and found 2kg of the drug ice, 255g of cocaine and 8g of ecstasy in a hidden compartment.

The traffic intercept was captured on police body worn camera footage and officers found the drugs in six large clip-seal bags hidden in a compartment in the tailgate, which could only be found after it was deconstructed by removing screws, the documents allege.

She told police she was travelling to Mackay to look at houses with the aim of moving there and taking up work as a hairdresser and had left Brisbane at 2am that day, was flushed in the face and her hands were excessively shaking, police state in court documents.

Her father, maintenance contractor Ross Hounslow, 62, from Harristown, near Toowoomba, told the court in his affidavit that his family “are shocked” at the police allegations that his daughter was a drug mule.

“Our family is a very hardworking country family … I do not condone criminal activity of any nature,” Mr Hounslow told the court in his affidavit.

In his objection to bail affidavit sworn on October 20, investigating officer Snr Constable Thomas O’Rourke from Rockhampton CIB, stated that the “street value” of the ice found in a hidden compartment within the tailgate of the ute, was up to $2m.

Snr Const. O’Rourke wrote in the affidavit that the October arrest was the second time Ms Hounslow had been stopped by police telling them she was travelling to Mackay.

On September 14 that year police allegedly found two mobile phones and about $3000 in her handbag when police searched her.

On November 7, Justice Susan Brown ordered Ms Hounslow be granted bail on strict conditions including that she must appear at Rockhampton Magistrates Court on December 7, live with her dad in Harristown, and report to police in Toowoomba three days a week, and abide by a night curfew.

Ms Hounslow told the court that at the time of her arrest she was the manager of a cafe and earning $1043 per week, previously worked in real estate, and completed an apprenticeship in hairdressing.

Ms Hounslow’s charges will next be mentioned in the Supreme Court in Rockhampton on May 1.