Former carney walks free from court after pleading guilty to selling drugs to kids in Katherine

MICHELE ‘Mic’ Bryan Roughton Daltoe operated his Top End drug dealing business for nearly four years, ‘regularly supplying others, including children, with cannabis’, before he was finally busted last year

Mic Roughton Daltoe spent three months in jail after pleading guilty in the Supreme Court to selling drugs to children. Picture: Supplied

A SMALL time drug dealer and former carney who pushed his product on children in Katherine has walked from court a free man after spending just three months in jail on remand.

Michele ‘Mic’ Bryan Roughton Daltoe, 28, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to three counts of supplying less than a commercial quantity of cannabis to a child following his arrest in October last year.

The court heard the first girl Roughton Daltoe sold to was 15 when he sold her a $50 bag of cannabis in 2019 before the girl brought two other children over to buy more of the drug.

One of the girls introduced to Roughton Daltoe by the first girl then started coming to his house to buy cannabis and introduced him to a third girl.

Roughton Daltoe “approached” them and told them he was a dealer then sold to the third girl, telling the pair “if they needed any more, they could come back”.

He also pleaded guilty to selling $400 worth of cannabis to an adult who was subsequently stopped by police on the Victoria Hwy before officers raided Roughton Daltoe’s house where they found 20 prepacked gram bags of cannabis, knuckledusters, syringes, ice pipes and $2050 in cash.

Mic Roughton Daltoe operated his drug business in Katherine for nearly four years before he was finally busted. Picture: Supplied

In suspending Roughton Daltoe’s three year and two month sentence after time served, Justice Judith Kelly said he started using cannabis after moving to Darwin at age 12 where he lived with his mother who had her own substance abuse issues.

By the time he was 14, Justice Kelly said Roughton Daltoe had left school to work the carnival circuit in Queensland and the NT and began drinking and smoking cannabis regularly.

Justice Kelly said Roughton Daltoe had operated his drug business in Katherine for nearly four years, “regularly supplying others, including children, with cannabis”, before he was finally busted.

“Unlike some of the other cases that you heard discussed, you approached children and told them that you sold cannabis,” she said.

Justice Kelly said while Roughton Daltoe was “old enough to know better” at age 28 and had flunked out of a previous stint in rehab, he still had the potential to be a productive member of society.

“I really consider that the time you spent in custody (is) insufficient but I have to take into account rehabilitation,” she said.

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“You have taken some steps towards rehabilitation in the meantime and — this is important — you have got yourself a job, which is an important protective factor.”

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