Judge blasts “woefully inadequate” suggested jail time for prison drug smuggler

The state’s highest judge has called for tougher sentences for criminals who smuggle drugs into Queensland prisons, after a man forced his elderly grandmother to help smuggle in commercial amounts of ice.

The state’s highest judge has called for tougher sentences for criminals who smuggle drugs into Queensland prisons during the sentencing of a man for forcing his elderly grandmother to help smuggle commercial amounts of ice and prescription opioids into jails.

During the sentencing of Kyle Dean Williams on Friday, Supreme Court Chief Justice Helen Bowskill told the prosecutor that his suggested two-and-a-half-year head sentence for Williams’ procuring his 70-year-old grandmother to smuggle substantial amounts of drugs into prison for profit was “woefully inadequate”.

“I just found two-and-a-half years on the crown’s submission to be woefully inadequate as an appropriate penalty,” Chief Justice Bowskill said.

“It doesn’t send any message at all really to the people who would engage in this offending and I think a stronger message should be sent, the maximum is 25 years.

“How does anyone ever escape this, how does anyone ever get away and break the cycle, they can’t, they are stuck in there and it’s available.

“If people can’t escape (drugs), even when they are sent to prison, there is no hope for anybody. So there has to be a severely deterrent penalty.”

Supreme Court Chief Justice Helen Bowskill. Picture: Zak Simmonds

Williams, who appeared via video-link from prison where he is serving five years’ jail for drug trafficking, pleaded guilty to five counts of supplying dangerous schedule one drugs within a prison and one count of supplying dangerous schedule two drugs within a prison.

Together with his grandmother, Gwyneth Lorraine Williams, they arranged for the smuggling of 99 buprenorphine strips – a prescription opioid drug used for heroin addiction – 230 stanozolol steroid tablets and on one occasion supplied 3.894g of pure ice between February 2, 2020, and December 2020.

Five of the supplies were to Arthur Gorrie prison in Brisbane and one supply of buprenorphine occurred at Tannum Sands near Gladstone, the court was told.

Williams was in prison at the time he committed the crimes and he was busted by police because he made frequent phone callsto his grandma from prison.

In the first supply, Williams arranged for his grandmother to give a prisoner’s girlfriend a package containing 3.89g of pureice and 200 tablets of steroids, which was then smuggled into prison.

The prosecutor told the court that Williams’ crimes were financially motivated as he did not use the drugs himself and just sold them to inmates, and his offending was “relatively sophisticated and planned”.

Chief Justice Williams said Mrs Williams had been “dominated by” her grandson.

Last month Mrs Williams was sentenced to a wholly-suspended two-year jail term for six counts of supply and one count of drugpossession.

Justice Peter Davis gave Mrs Williams a suspended sentence because she was an “otherwise upstanding” person, with no criminalhistory, who was forced to take part by her “overbearing” grandson, the court heard.

Williams turned to drugs due to his traumatic childhood, the court heard.

Chief Justice Bowskill said four years’ prison was an appropriate penalty for his serious crimes but sentenced Williams to two years’ prison, to be served on top of his current sentence for drug trafficking which expires in November next year.