Stephen John Hooper pleads guilty to drug supply, weapons charges

The main bedroom of a Coffs Coast home was a place that just kept giving as police found a jewellery box full of drugs, a slingshot and other weapons, and a locked safe.

Police discovered a plastic resealable bag containing white compressed powder - thought to be cocaine - inside a jewellery box. Picture: File

A Coffs Coast drug dealer has narrowly avoided a full-time jail stint after police found 80g of cocaine, a baton, brass knuckle dusters and vials of anabolic steroids in a locked safe at his home.

Police were on their way to execute a search warrant at 31-year-old Stephen John Hooper’s Sawtell home around 2.10pm on February 15 when they spotted him driving along Toormina Rd.

They followed, pulling him over at Coffs Harbour Airport where he was told he would be searched.

No illegal items were found in his vehicle but it was a different story when officers went through his Sawtell home.

There they discovered a plastic resealable bag containing white compressed powder – thought to be cocaine – inside a jewellery box.

Police pulled Hooper’s vehicle over at the Coffs Harbour Airport.

Also found in the main bedroom was a metal baton, a gel blaster pistol, two brass knuckle dusters and a slingshot with three rubbers.

Police also seized a locked safe from the premises.

Hooper – who did not attend his home for the search – walked into Coffs Harbour Police Station six days later where he was arrested.

After taking further legal advice, Hooper provided officers with the passcode to the safe.

Hooper was spotted by officers driving along Toormina Rd as they decided to follow him instead of going straight to a Sawtell address to execute a search warrant.

Police facts state inside the lock box was a plastic bag and a container – both holding white powder – and 15 vials of liquid forms of anabolic steroids.

The safe also revealed a container of Oxandrolone pills – an anabolic steroid medication.

There were also two small plastic bags of cannabis seeds weighing less than a gram.

At Coffs Harbour Local Court on June 21, Hooper pleaded guilty to eight charges, including supplying prohibited drugs in a greater than indictable quantity, and three counts of prohibited drug possession.

A gel blaster pistol was one of a number of illegal items found in the main bedroom. Picture: File

Other charges included three counts of possessing or using a prohibited weapon without a permit, and one count of possessing an unregistered firearm (the gel blaster pistol).

On the cocaine supply charge, Magistrate Theresa Hamilton convicted Hooper and sentenced him to a 10-month intensive correction order with 100 hours of community service.

On the charge relating to the small quantity of cannabis seeds he was convicted without further penalty.

On the remaining charges he was sentenced to a 15-month community correction order.