Toowoomba court: Schoolyard bully victim turns teenage drug trafficker

A teen caught trafficking drugs over an extended period of time has told a judge she did so to be accepted by her peers, after she was the victim of school bullying.

A teenager who trafficked cannabis, ecstasy, LSD and “magic mushrooms” to other young people over a 10-month period had done so as a response to schoolyard bullying and to be accepted by her peers, Toowoomba Supreme Court has heard.

The girl was just 17 when she started her trafficking business in Toowoomba in August 2020, Crown prosecutor Philip McCarthy QC said.

She turned 18 some seven months into the trafficking period and so was to be sentenced as an adult, he said.

However, because she was a child for most of the offending period she can’t be named.

The teenager had little insight into the seriousness of her offending and despite being arrested twice, had continued supplying drugs though her involvement had “de-escalated”, Mr McCarthy said.

After she was arrested a third time and police refused her bail, leaving her to spend a night in the watch house, the seriousness became apparent.

Mr McCarthy said the teenager had advertised the sale of various drugs via text, Facebook and Snapchat and had sourced the drugs from more serious drug dealers.

She had at times bought an “eight-ball” which she broke down into smaller amounts, put into capsules and sold them to others.

Compounding her offending was that she had on four occasions supplied a minor with drugs, though one recipient was just one year younger than her and she had arranged for a drug dealer to supply a stick of cannabis to a 15-year-old child, he said.

Now 19, she pleaded guilty to trafficking.

Her barrister David Jones told the court since the girl’s arrest in April, 2021, she had been on a nightly curfew and had to report regularly to police and submit to drug tests.

She lived at home with her parents who provided letters to the court, had a job, a driver’s licence and was remorseful, Mr Jones submitted.

Justice Martin Burns took into account the teen’s co-operation with police, pleas of guilty and steps to rehabilitate, and accepted the Crown’s sentence submission and sentenced her to three years in jail but ordered she be released on parole immediately.

Justice Burns warned her she wasn’t being “let off” and that any offending in that time would see the teenager sent to jail.

Originally published as Toowoomba court: Schoolyard bully victim turns teenage drug trafficker