Bateau Bay: Karen Elain Gellatly sold magic mushrooms to ‘medicate’ friends
A health worker who fancied herself as a “medical shaman woman” by supplying magic mushrooms, LSD and cannabis has been sentenced. And now the foreigner faces deportation.
Central Coast
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A health worker was smoking up to 4g of cannabis a day when she was stopped outside her medical centre with 11g of magic mushrooms in her handbag, a court has heard.
Karen Elain Gellatly, 59, of Bateau Bay, faced Gosford District Court on Monday after pleading guilty to two counts of supplying a commercial quantity of magic mushrooms and three counts of supplying an indictable quantity of LSD and cannabis.
Gellatly was sentenced to three years jail to be served in the community by way of an intensive correction order.
She was also ordered to perform 200 hours of community service work and abstain from illicit drugs or alcohol for the duration of the order.
But her legal problems might not end there after the court heard the Scottish national was not a citizen of Australia and her conviction of a serious offence could see her deported at the conclusion of her sentence.
The court heard Gellatly first used magic mushrooms in Bali in 2003 or 2004 before her marriage ended in 2005.
Judge David Wilson said a chronology of Gellatly’s life states she moved in with a relative in 2020 to help “stabilise” him with his personal issues but it ended up having the opposite effect and she significantly increased smoking cannabis up to 4g a day by 2022.
Judge Wilson said Gellatly also used alcohol, cocaine, MDMA, alprazolam and magic mushrooms.
He said despite the seriousness of the offending Gellatly had shown remorse and he found she was a low risk of reoffending.
EARLIER FROM FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
A single mum “zeroing in on 60” lied to herself about helping people through supplying commercial quantities of magic mushrooms, along with LSD and cannabis, when she was really just a drug dealer, a court has heard.
Karen Elain Gellatly, of Bateau Bay, faced Gosford District Court on Friday for a sentencing hearing after previously pleading guilty to two counts of supplying a commercial quantity of magic mushrooms and three counts of supplying an indictable quantity of LSD and cannabis.
The court heard the phlebotomist, who worked at Grace Medical Centre, Bateau Bay, taking blood and other biological samples, suffered a “traumatic experience” in her 30s before undergoing an awakening to the “positive” effects of psychedelic drugs on a trip to Bali aged 38.
The court heard these two experiences led her to start “researching” or watching documentaries about the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelics, before she started selling magic mushrooms many years later to “long-term friends only” to help them overcome alcohol abuse and mental health issues.
A clinical psychologist who diagnosed Gellatly with PTSD gave evidence, telling the court how the mother of three adult children became absorbed in the “lies we tell ourselves” in an effort to reconcile her offending.
Psychologist Patrick Sheehan told the court Gellatly became convinced she was some kind of “medical shaman woman” who was trying to “help out” friends rather than admit she was a drug dealer.
Gellatly’s barrister told the court her client had since come to realise she was wrong and had suffered the embarrassment and “shame” of having to tell her employer and family what she had done “as a 59-year-old woman”.
Gellatly took the witness stand, telling the court she did not realise psilocybin — the active ingredient in magic mushrooms — was a “schedule 1 drug”.
“I’m very ashamed, very remorseful,” she told the court.
“I realise now it (psychedelic therapy) has to be done under medical supervision and there’s high risks involved.
“I didn’t think it was as illegal as that because it had some medical benefits and it’s not a drug of addiction.”
However, the Crown prosecutor said Gellatly was in it for the money and “it’s simply not credible that all the customers are friends she’s trying to assist”.
He put it to her that she was in the “business” of selling magic mushrooms, and to a lesser extent LSD and cannabis, which she did “for profit” and she replied “yes”.
An agreed set of facts states police obtained a warrant to tap Gellatly’s phone on October 31, 2022, and intercepted her having conversations about supplying drugs.
Shortly after 12pm on December 5, 2022, Gellatly sent a WhatsApp message to a customer: “Do you want to come and grab shrooms and LSD tonight they going fast with Xmas coming how much you want?”
Later she boasted how busy she had been.
“I’ve been on the f--king phone all night. I haven’t even watched TV. I’ve got f--ken carpel tunnel, my thumbs from typing,” she said of organising drug supplies.
Detectives arrested Gellatly outside Grace Medical Centre the following day with 11.29g of magic mushrooms in her handbag.
A search of her home at Rays Rd, Bateau Bay, uncovered six vacuum sealed bags hidden in a secret compartment in the base of a dining room chair containing a 187g of magic mushrooms.
Jude David Wilson will sentence Gellatly on Monday.
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