Richmond safe injecting room worker appeals jail time for heroin trafficking
A drug support worker caught trafficking heroin outside Richmond’s safe injecting room, his home and even a school will only spend half his sentence behind bars. Here’s why.
Melbourne City
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An outreach support worker at the Richmond safe injecting room caught selling heroin outside the centre, his home and a school has had his jail time halved.
Matthew Honey appeared in the County Court on Tuesday to appeal a 12-month sentence.
The 50-year-old pleaded guilty on September 28 to trafficking heroin between September and October 2019 and was handed a year behind bars but immediately appealed and was released on bail.
Judge Wilmoth on Tuesday halved his jail time to six months, despite saying Honey had shown no remorse.
“I do not accept the plea as an indication of remorse given there is no other evidence of it and he did not acknowledge any remorse when asked about it,” she said.
“The offending was certainly a breach of trust even though Mr Honey was not a councillor, he was a trusted and well regarded worker and an effective one as well.
“His offending was behaviour which flew in the face of the goals of the service he worked for.”
His job at the safe injecting centre was to educate addicts on safe drug use and how to avoid overdose all while selling heroin himself.
Magistrate Kieran Gilligan, who sentenced Honey on September 28, described Honey’s offending as a “gross breach of trust”.
“Your conduct completely undermined and subverted the purposes of the establishment of the
facility,” he said.
“You trafficked in the street and outside a primary school.
“It is little wonder that local residents regard your conduct with distaste.”
Using the code name ‘Mum’ another woman would supply him heroin daily to be sold while using his work phone to organise deals with a network of users.
Honey had been a long-time heroin user who had kicked the habit, but relapsed in the six months leading up to his offending.
He has been sentenced to six months in jail which will be combined with a 12 month community correction order and subject to supervision.
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Contact Grace at grace.mckinnon@news.com.au