North Avoca: Graham Gellatly pleads guilty to commercial drug supply of meth, shrooms, cannabis oil
New details of the sophisticated police operation which nabbed a mother-and-son drug dealing duo and their accomplice have been revealed. Read the details here.
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Police were granted permission to bug a suspected drug dealer’s North Avoca home, which led to his arrest and that of a mother and her son who were also in on the action, a court has heard.
Graham Gellatly, 37, of Bateau Bay, faced Gosford District Court last week where he changed his not guilty pleas to 12 drug-related offences to guilty and his trial — scheduled for this week — was vacated.
The sudden change of heart came after Gellatly’s mother Karen Elain Gellatly, 59, was sentenced for supplying commercial quantities of magic mushrooms, along with LSD and cannabis, and their accomplice Simon Daher, 48, pleaded guilty to 11 counts of supplying commercial quantities of meth and amphetamines, possessing prohibited weapons and dealing with proceeds of crime.
Daher faced Downing Centre District Court on Friday where he was sentenced to seven years jail with a non-parole period of three years and six months.
Karen Gellatly was sentenced in September to a three-year intensive correction order, which also included the conditions she abstain from drugs or alcohol and perform 200 hours of community service.
After her son Graham pleaded guilty last week, an agreed set of facts was tendered, which revealed the sophisticated surveillance police used to nab the trio and prevent more than 1.5kg of meth hitting the streets.
The facts state police were granted a special warrant to install “video and audio surveillance devices” in Daher’s Bellevue Crescent home at North Avoca on October 20, 2022.
The bugs captured Daher and Graham Gellatly red handed as they placed an LPG barbecue bottle on the kitchen table at 5pm on December 8, 2022, and opened a false bottom to remove a vacuum sealed bag of drugs.
“At around 5.56pm, Simon Daher opened the vacuum sealed package and appeared to then weigh the contents being a white substance in a clear bag,” the facts state.
“Simon Daher sampled the contents and said ‘wow, rock hard’ and appears to comment on the weight of the bag.”
About 20 minutes later Graham Gellatly threw the gas bottle in a skip bin next door, which was a construction site at the time.
Later police tracked Daher to the water tower two doors down where he stashed 542.5g of meth in a container, wrapped in grey duct tape.
While he was doing that police captured Graham Gellatly counting $13,000 cash on the kitchen table.
Police meanwhile also got warrants to intercept their mobile phones which, over the course of a few days in December 2022, captured them organising the supply of meth, cannabis oil, LSD, cocaine and amphetamine.
Graham Gellatly was captured supplying commercial quantities being 542.5g and 362.6g of meth, 710.4g of amphetamine, 27.4g of psilocin (magic mushrooms) and 1L of cannabis oil.
Graham Gellatly was later arrested on April 5, 2023, and will be sentenced on May 16 next year.
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