Caity Gerrard: Beaudesert woman jailed for meth bust on parole

A southeast Qld mum-of-two will remain behind bars after she was busted twice with commercial quantities of meth, just weeks after her parole release for drug trafficking.

A “hopelessly” meth-addicted southeast Queensland mum was busted twice with commercial quantities of ice just weeks after her release on parole for drug trafficking.

Beaudesert woman Catherine Marjorie Gerrard, 31, pleaded guilty in Brisbane Supreme Court on Thursday to 10 serious drug offences.

They included two counts of possessing commercial quantities of methamphetamine, two counts of possessing MDMA, two counts of possessing restricted drug GBL, two charges of possessing glass pipes, and one charge each of possessing digital scales and Australian currency suspected of being the proceeds of a drug offence.

The offending occurred on June 6 and June 18 last year.

On the first occasion, Gerrard was pulled over by police on the Pacific Mwy at Shailer Park for her “unusual” driving.

She was “shaking and nervous”, the court heard.

A search of her handbag uncovered 13.4g of pure meth in 18.4g of substance, divided into saleable amounts, small quantities of MDMA and GBL, a glass pipe and digital scales.

She was charged and granted bail, but just 12 days later was arrested again in a unit on North Quay in the Brisbane CBD.

Beaudesert meth addict Catherine Marjorie Gerrard, 31. Picture: Facebook

Gerrard and her co-accused, who is due to be sentenced on November 30, were discovered in possession on 3.4g of pure meth in 4.6g of substance, small quantities of MDMA and GBL, $12,250 in cash, digital scales and smoking pipes.

Both were wanted on return-to-prison warrants.

Gerrard has spent the intervening period, a total of 525 days, in custody.

The RTP warrant was issued for Gerrard as she was on parole at the time of both sets of offending.

On September 11, 2019, Gerrard was sentenced in the Brisbane Supreme Court to three years’ imprisonment for offences including drug trafficking.

She was granted parole on April 20 last year, just weeks before her current offending.

The full-time expiry date of her previous sentence, which she was required to serve out due to the current offending, is next week on December 2.

Defence counsel Stephen Kissick noted that, when taking into account the pre-sentence custody on her September 2019 sentence, Gerrard would have ended up serving the entirety of that sentence behind bars — a crushing burden for someone so young and one which he said brought into consideration the “totality’’ principle of sentencing.

He said Gerrard’s “appalling” criminal history began in 2015, soon after she and her brother discovered their father dead on his houseboat.

Her family was also rocked by the twin suicides of her brother and sister following her father’s death.

Mr Kissick said Gerrard became “hopelessly addicted” to methamphetamine, an addiction which contributed to the downfall of her marriage to her childhood sweetheart, a marriage which produced two children.

Mr Kissick said his client would reside with her mother, a registered nurse, in Beaudesert upon her release from custody.

Justice Martin Burns sentenced Gerrard to two years’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for an operational period of three years.

He placed her on three years’ probation, conditional on her seeking medical treatment for her addiction.