Former Melbourne Uni student David Jurd sentenced for drug trafficking after motel death

Find out how a dead body in a motel exposed an ex-St Bede’s and Melbourne Uni pre-medicine student as a drug trafficker.

David Jurd was nabbed with a stack of drugs including MDMA. iStock Image

A former Melbourne Uni biomed science student was done trafficking drugs after finding his mate dead in a Highett motel room.

David Jurd, 29, was sentenced in the County Court on Thursday to a 12-month community correction order after pleading guilty to trafficking MDMA, cocaine and ice.

Jurd was nabbed with a stack of drugs in his BMW at the Best Western Buckingham International Motel Highett just after 7.30am on August 31, 2018.

The court heard Jurd had just returned to the motel, having spent the night at his parents’ Parkdale home, to find his friend dead in a running spa.

Jurd phoned 000 but was soon arrested after he pulled out a packet of morphine tablets while showing police his driver’s licence.

Police then seized a combined 130g of pure meth, MDMA and cocaine and a range of steroids from his luxury vehicle.

Jurd, on parole at the time, told police he had taken the drugs from the motel room and wiped up a “bunch of lines” before phoning 000.

Jurd claimed he didn’t want the drugs to “reflect badly on his friend” nor did he want to breach his parole.

Jurd’s parole was revoked and he remained locked up until December last year.

The St Bede’s College graduate and teacher’s son had been an “excellent” high school student, despite being bullied about his weight, the court was told.

The court heard Jurd commenced a biomedical science degree at Melbourne Uni but dropped out in the second year.

The degree is a perquisite program to studying medicine.

Jurd later sold gym memberships and started his own skin products business.

The court heard Jurd’s introduction to ice in 2015 led to addiction and subsequent drug debt, which caused him to begin drug dealing.

But Judge Michael O’Connell noted Jurd now had strong prospects for rehabilitation, having completed a Bachelor of Psychological Sciences in jail and being about to begin an honours degree in Psychological Sciences at Swinburne University.

Jurd also worked as an NDIS support co-ordinator.

Judge O’Connell noted Jurd had spent most of his time since September 2015 in prison but deemed the trafficker a “low-risk of reoffending”.

Jurd was previously jailed for trafficking a commercial quantity of ethylene while also in possession of. MDMA, meth, DMT, ketamine, methorphan, cocaine, oxymetholone, testosterone and cannabis.

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