Michelle Louise Sims trafficked meth around Toowoomba for four months

The court heard the 42-year-old mum was dealing drugs to dozens of people across the Garen City. DETAILS:

Michelle Louise Sims was jailed for three years by the Toowoomba Supreme Court on December 14, 2021, for trafficking meth.

A Toowoomba mother will miss her daughter’s 18th birthday celebrations next month after she was jailed for three years for drug trafficking.

Michelle Louise Sims’ barrister Jessica Goldie had asked Toowoomba Supreme Court if it was possible for her client to be released from jail in time for her daughter’s 18th birthday on Australia Day next year.

However, Justice Martin Burns said Sims had been trafficking meth and had also supplied cannabis and oxycodone and, despite Sims having spent nine months and 10 days in pre-sentence custody, she would have to spend a little more time behind bars.

Sims appeared in custody on Tuesday to plead guilty to trafficking meth between May 6, 2020, and September 5, 2020, supplying oxycodone to another on May 20, 2020, and supplying cannabis on June 2, 2020, as well as to possessing meth and diazepam tablets, a mobile phone, clip seal bags and three electric scales found during a police search of her Toowoomba home on September 4, 2020.

Her phone’s contents were downloaded by police and found to have messages pertaining to drug deals, Crown prosecutor Nicole Friedewald told the court.

Ms Friedewald said the now 42-year-old Sims had a customer base of about 30 people and had sourced drugs from multiple suppliers including Nathan Lee Thompson, 31, who had since been jailed for eight years for trafficking.

Ms Goldie said Sims had only started using drugs after a relationship breakdown in 2006.

Over the ensuing 15 years she had struggled with drug use and would get off substances only to relapse, she told the court.

Since being in custody, Sims had completed two rehabilitation courses and was working as a cleaner in the administration section of the prison and she was sewing bags for the homeless, Ms Goldie submitted.

Justice Burns said by the schedule of facts Sims had at least two customers who had helped with her business pointing to an “organisational component” to her trafficking.

Justice Burns accepted she was addicted to meth at the time but had also sold drugs for profit.

Taking into account the 285 days already spent in custody, Justice Burns sentenced Sims to three years in jail but ordered she be released on parole on April 3, 2022.