Drug-dealing dads Cameron Kelly and Dwayne Diaz served prison sentence

A judge has chastised two meth middlemen when handing down jail time in Wollongong District Court.

A pair of drug-dealing dads from Berkeley will be locked up for multiple years after they were sentenced in Wollongong District Court on Friday.

Meth middlemen Cameron Jade Kelly, 40, and Dwayne Evan Diaz, 37, were arrested in March of last year after a major Illawarra and south coast drug sting instigated by Strike Force Cohen.

The investigations, including phone taps, led to police arresting the two men in their respective Berkeley homes on March 4, 2021 with the duo going on to plead guilty to two charges each of supplying a commercial quantity of a prohibited drug.

The charges relate to separate dealings dating back to 2020 where the total value of the drugs exceeded $200,000.

Cameron Kelly was on an ICO at the time of his arrest. Picture: Facebook

The first instance was in July of that year when the pair divvied up nearly 350g of the stimulant into 21 different deals, while two months later, a phone tap caught Kelly, a father of two, organising the sale of 280g of meth with Diaz.

In the call, Diaz, who has a wife and three children, said “It’s alright… I put two dots of the finer powder in and that’s alright. I haven’t tried a rock, that’s all I put in”.

Judge Andrew Haesler described the pair as running separate “haphazard businesses” before handing down his sentence on Friday, with Kelly appearing via video link from Macquarie Correctional Centre and Diaz from Kempsey prison.

“One could not categorise (their dealings) as well organised,” the judge said.

“It’s an instance of users with access to supplies up the line… There was some organization, but it was haphazard.

“[The drugs] were for their own use, but also to support their modest lifestyle and in Kelly’s case, his gambling addiction.”

Judge Haesler did hear of the trying personal family circumstances of the pair, with Kelly’s mother, who was in court, in palliative care, and Diaz’s wife burdened with looking after their three children due to an “absent father”.

“Kelly took up the use of illicit drugs when he was too young to make rational decisions,” he said.

“He used them to cope with the physical and emotional abuse of his mother’s partners.

The pair appeared in Wollongong District Court via video link.

“If [Kelly’s mother] dies while he is in custody, he will not be able to express his grief like others would express their grief.

“[Diaz] should be there to help [his wife] with their children, but he is not. He is in jail and she has the full responsibility to provide care and a home.”

Diaz was sentenced to three years and six months in prison with a non-parole period of two years and one month.

The sentence was backdated to the date of his arrest, meaning he will be eligible for parole in April, 2023.

Kelly was on an intensive corrections order at the time of his arrest so Judge Haesler slapped him with an extra two months jail, taking his total sentence to three years and eight months.

Kelly, who has also gone by the name Cameron McTiernan, has a non-parole period of two years and two months and will be eligible for parole in May, 2023.