Alwyn Eltosn Blair sentenced for prison drug smuggling

While attending a First Nations Elders meeting at a Qld jail, one man allegedly smuggled drugs to an inmate with a “simply appalling” history.

Capricornia Correctional Centre at Rockhampton.

An Aboriginal Elder was allegedly pressured into smuggling drugs into a jail, Rockhampton District Court has heard.

The revelation came during the sentencing of Alwyn Eltosn Blair who at 22 is already a seasoned criminal.

The court heard Blair was serving a sentence for robbing Kalka Palms Hotel where he and his co-offender, Jacob Jason James Richardson, stole $2800 worth of alcohol, as well as more than $2500 cash on September 18, 2021.

Blair was sentenced on November 29, 2022, to three years’ prison while Richardson was sentenced to four years’ prison in Rockhampton District Court on June 3, 2022, for the robbery and other offending.

Crown prosecutor Cassandra Nitz told the court this week that, on June 19, 2025, Blair supplied two grams of marijuana to another prisoner during a Woorabinda First Nations Elders meeting at the Capricornia Correctional Centre on August 1, 2024.

“He received it from an Elder who was present at that meeting and concealed it in his pants before the other prisoner obtained it from the defendant’s pants,” she said.

Ms Nitz said the Elder had been charged but not yet dealt with by the courts.

Judge Jeff Clarke said the Elder had been “pressured” into bringing the drugs into the Etna Creek prison.

Defence barrister Sheridan Shaw said Blair had a “significantly disadvantaged childhood” with his parents separating when he was two years old and he was subjected to alcohol abuse, violence and drug abuse.

She said he had been passed around to family members and left school during Year 10.

She also Blair had been in a relationship with the same woman for some time and she had two children with other men.

The court heard Blair had been handed a suspended sentence in the Rockhampton Magistrates Court recently for offences that postdated this.

Judge Clarke described Blair’s criminal record as “simply appalling” for someone his age and “in my mind” his rehabilitation prospects were “bleak”.

Blair pleaded guilty to one count of supplying a schedule two drug in a correctional facility and was sentenced to nine-months prison to commence on the completion of his sentence from the November 2022 jail term, taking into account 213 days non-declarable presentence custody.

Originally published as Alwyn Eltosn Blair sentenced for prison drug smuggling