Qld ice queen mum, accounts clerk, turned to drugs ‘fleeing DV’

A Queensland mum and accounts clerk who claims an ex-boyfriend caused her to turn to drugs trafficking has walked free from court.

A Queensland mum and accounts clerk who turned to trafficking ice, cannabis and ecstasy has walked free from court after trying to shift blame for her addiction and downfall to her ex-partner.

Lauren Caitlin Carnall, 31, from Deception Bay, was in the Supreme Court in Brisbane on Thursday where Justice Paul Freeburn said she had supplied drugs on 49 occasions to 14 customers, which amounted to trafficking, over nearly five months.

Lauren Carnall. Picture: Liam Kidston

Carnall, an accounts receivable officer at mining construction company Goodline for the past eight months, pleaded guilty to trafficking, which included 32 occasions when she actually supplied drugs, 12 times when she was preparing to supply them and five offers to supply which did not eventuate.

Crown prosecutor Ben Jackson told the court that Carnall was a street-level seller and user of drugs and had been busted trafficking after police found the drug ice hidden in her bra when they were executing a search warrant at a home in Brendale on October 6, 2021.

Mr Jackson said that during that search they took her laptop and iPhone, which contained drug conversations, and they returned to search her Deception Bay home a week later, finding ice and ecstasy.

Defence barrister Matthew Hynes submitted that Carnall should stay out of jail because she was a first-time offender.

Mr Hynes told the court that Carnall turned to selling drugs due to making “a bad decision” while in the grips of a drug addiction and fleeing from what she described as a “domestically violent situation”.

“She was desperate and that desperation is said to lower her moral culpability. As in, she is far less morally culpable than you or I would be if we were trafficking for profit,” Mr Hynes submitted.

Mr Hynes said that Carnall had completed drug rehab and was “very sorry” and remorseful.

He said she only became a drug pusher out of a desperate need to pay for a “roof over her and her daughters head having fled from a domestic violence situation”.

Lauren Carnall (left) leaving the Supreme Court with her mother, Deborah Carnall. Picture: Liam Kidston

Carnall’s mother Deborah Anne Carnall was in court and gave a character reference to the court for her daughter.

Carnall’s twin sister, Corinne, also gave a character reference, tendered in court.

In the 19 months she has spent on bail she has had clean urine drug tests, Mr Hynes told the court.

Justice Freeburn sentenced Carnall to three years’ jail with immediate parole for the charge of drug trafficking.

For three counts of drug possession, she was convicted but not further punished.

She must report to the parole office at Maroochydore.

Outside court Deborah Carnell requested “privacy” for her daughter.