Steroid importer Dylan Shaw sentencing for second drug supply
The boyfriend of a topless waitress, who was on bail for importing and distributing steroids when he was picked up for selling cocaine and `ice’, faced a sentencing hearing.
Central Coast
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Dylan Shaw was never the sharpest tool in the shed, which is ironic because he’s now in charge of handing them out in the wood shop at Long Bay Jail.
It started when he had to repeat kindergarten and his learning difficulties continued until he quit school by Year 7 not long after his parents found him passed out drunk aged 12 or 13.
They also found some “bongs” which he denied were his.
At one stage he went on the run for nearly 12 weeks, living rough on the streets using any drugs he could get his hands on before he eventually came home, skinny as a rake and with matted hair.
A sentencing hearing at Gosford District Court on Friday heard he completed Year 10 in juvenile detention despite his loving parents’ every effort to get him back on track.
Taking the witness stand the now 25-year-old said he started drinking, then cannabis, amphetamines and later steroids and pills to overcome his social anxiety.
“I couldn’t even fit in with my own family,” he told the court of his struggles.
He said after he got his first girlfriend and started working for his dad things settled down for about four years but when that relationship ended he started going to the gym.
The court heard his immaturity and social anxiety returned and before long it was pumping iron and taking steroids which filled the void.
“Steroids built him up physically and mentally,” Judge David Wilson remarked.
Shaw started a new relationship with a part time topless waitress and vet nurse Nateesha Jennifer Barlin, a self-confessed “ugly duckling” who also fell into the gym culture because of her own body image issues.
Before long Shaw told the court things “spiralled out of control” and they began importing steroids and human hormones from China and the Philippines.
Barlin once boasted “I pretty much supply the whole Central Coast”.
But the Australian Border Force was tracking their unsophisticated “criminal enterprise” and raided their little rented granny flat at Jilliby on November 6, 2016 following a two-year sting.
In the previous six months, the ABF had intercepted 13,672 tablets, 11.2L of testosterone, 600ml of anabolic steroids and 20 vials of human growth hormone.
After protracted legal proceedings the pair pleaded guilty and at a sentencing hearing in July last year tendered sworn affidavits they had turned their life around and were no longer consorting with the wrong crowd.
Again the problem was someone was watching.
This time it was undercover police from Strike Force Wandevan who taped conversations in which Barlin boasted Shaw had a “good thing going” this time round having moved on to selling ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamines through a Facebook page.
The court heard Shaw met people through gym circles and on social media before directing them to an encrypted Whatsapp platform to organise deals.
Payments were made directly into Barlin’s Luxe Lashes business accounts.
“He’s moving about 2 kilos a week. We are making 50k a week,” Barlin was intercepted saying in phone taps.
On July 26, officers swooped as Shaw and two of his alleged up-line suppliers left a restaurant in Belmore in Sydney’s south west.
A search of his car uncovered $179,000 cash in a hidden compartment while a search of his then Wyee home found methylamphetamine (ice), $27,400 cash, vials, tablets, and powder, suspected to be steroids, and drug paraphernalia.
He was charged with eight counts of drug supply and knowingly deal with proceeds of crime while Barlin was charged with concealing a serious indictable offence.
She pleaded guilty to the steroids and concealment charge and was sentenced to 14 months jail with a non-parole period of six months.
This was later reduced on appeal to a non-parole period of three months, which she could serve it within the community and an additional 250 hours of community service work.
Shaw was sentenced to 18 months jail with a non-parole period of seven months for importing and distributing steroids.
He pleaded guilty to the subsequent drug supply and proceeds of crime matters and again told a sentence hearing on Friday, that this time, he really did understand the nature of his offending.
“I will never put myself through something like this again,” he told the court after spending 414 days in custody, where he works in the wood shop as the manager of the power tools.
His mother Vicky Shaw also took the witness stand.
“I think he’s had to learn a hard lesson,” she said.
Shaw will be sentenced on September 25.
