Brock Feenan jailed for Newcastle drug supply, selling MDMA
A Newcastle man admitted he was caught in a “cycle” of selling drugs and didn’t do it for the money, rather because it made him feel like someone. But that all came to end when he was caught by police at a random breath test.
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With a “grief stricken” childhood, being bullied at school, Brock Christopher Feenan fell into using drugs at the very young age of 14, a court has heard.
It’s then the former apprentice chef from Lambton had to find some way to fund his drug habit, so he turned to selling.
Feenan gave evidence via video link at Newcastle District Court on Thursday, and said it wasn’t about the money.
Selling drugs to his friends and their friends was “attractive”.
“I felt like I was someone,” he said.
But that all came to an end when in November last year, police stopped the 22-year-old in the early hours of the morning for a random breath test in New Lambton.
Police facts detailed that Feenan was “visibly nervous”, tapping his finger on the window of his vehicle and told officers he was coming from the King St Hotel in Newcastle.
Police checks revealed there was intelligence on Feenan, and that he was involved in local drug supply at Newcastle licensed premises.
A search of his car uncovered cash, capsules and blue pressed tablets and after he was arrested a further search of his home saw more drugs and cash stashed in a safe in his bedroom.
In total, there was more than 230 grams of MDMA and $18,600 in cash.
Feenan pleaded guilty supplying a commercial quantity of drugs and dealing with the proceeds of crime.
Feenan’s lawyer Robert Hussey told the court his client ran a localised and somewhat backyard type of operation, where planning was not overly sophisticated.
“It was a man working on his own. He was not a street level dealer,” Mr Hussey said.
“Yes it’s lucrative, but he was doing it to put the proceeds back in for himself and to buy other drugs such as cocaine and meth.”
Mr Hussey said Feenan had been “refreshingly” honest about his supply operations, selling to around 15 to 20 people who were friends or within his circle of friends.
But the Crown Prosecutor argued it was more than just a street level of supply to mates, citing the financial gain and planning was “significant”.
When he asked Feenan if he had any plans at the time to cease selling drugs and get back into employment, he replied: “I was trying to get back into working. I didn’t really have an out, I was stuck in the cycle and didn’t know how to get out of it”.
Judge Jennifer English said she found Feenan to be dealing above street level, but was not supplying entirely for greed but also for his own addiction.
But added, she felt he appeared “insightful” into the harm drugs could cause.
“I find he has seen the errors in his ways, he was cooperative with police and he is genuinely remorseful,” Judge English said.
Feenan was sentenced to three years and nine months jail with a non-parole period of two years, with his earliest release in November 2021.