Champion kickboxer Stuart McKinnon’s prison sentence slashed
A NSW court has shaved two years off former world class kickboxer Stuart McKinnon’s sentence for dealing thousands of MDMA tablets to undercover police.
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A Sydney drug dealer has won a two-year sentence reduction on appeal, with a court hearing the former world champion kickboxer has become a “well-mannered” prison sweeper.
Last year Castle Hill gym owner Stuart McKinnon was jailed until at least 2026 after he used his encrypted Blackberry phone and a codename, “Gohard101”, to sell thousands of MDMA pills to an undercover cop he knew as ‘Crystal’.
The 46-year-old recovering cocaine addict challenged the severity of his maximum 11-year sentence and on Wednesday it was shortened to eight years in the Supreme Court of Criminal Appeal.
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McKinnon’s seven and-a-half-year non-parole period was also slashed to five years and six months.
The court heard the father-of-two has become an “asset” to Long Bay prison, de-escalating arguments in the yard and “stopping anything from getting physical.”
The “well-mannered” reception sweeper also serves breakfast to his fellow inmates and gives them mental health support - a far cry from the junkie who had run up an $80,000 cocaine debt three years ago.
In March 2017 police informant Crystal collected 10,000 pills from McKinnon’s co-accused Bisesh Giri in Darlinghurst, then later handed $50,000 cash directly to McKinnon for the drugs.
When he arranged a second 10,000-pill sale to Crystal later that month, detectives swooped on delivery man Giri, who has since been sentenced to at least six years behind bars.
In May 2018 McKinnon was arrested with police raiding his car and home, where they seized $237,000 in cash and 0.016 grams of ‘Sparta’ brand testosterone.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of supplying large commercial quantities of MDMA, while additional charges of drug possession and dealing with proceeds of crime were to be taken into account upon sentence.
This is a tactic used by defence lawyers to reduce the total sentence imposed on offenders charged with multiple offences.
But the Crown conceded the sentencing judge failed to do this, meaning McKinnon’s penalty was too harsh, three appeal judges ruled.
Justice Anthony Payne SC found McKinnon relied on testosterone injections to speed up the healing process for his sports injuries.
McKinnon also claimed he was holding the huge sum of cash for somebody else, and the judges could not be satisfied it was drug money.
“He had also accumulated an $80,000 debt to a cocaine supplier who offered him the option of paying his debt by minding money for the drug dealer and selling MDMA for him,” Justice Anthony Payne said.
McKinnon, who dropped out of high school after year eight, said he desperately did not want his nine-year-old son and two-year-old daughter to ever be exposed to the risks of MDMA.