Toowoomba magistrate sceptical of drug offender’s claims in court

Having been caught drug driving the month before, the magistrate questioned the offender’s claims that drugs found with him were not his.

The offender’s claims raised the magistrate’s eye brows.

A Toowoomba magistrate appeared sceptical about an offender’s claim that drugs found with him were not his.

David George Loveday had been found with small amounts of amphetamine, a pipe for smoking the drug, handheld digital scales for weighing it and a straw used during consumption of the drug during a police search of a Murphy’s Creek residence on May 20.

Police also found a syringe which had not been disposed of properly, Toowoomba Magistrates Court heard.

The 57-year-old pleaded guilty to possessing those items as well as to driving with amphetamine and methylamphetamine in his system when pulled over by police on Murphys Creek Road, Murphys Creek, at 8.40pm on March 18.

His solicitor Dan Creevey Jnr, of Creevey Russell Lawyers, told the court the drugs had been found on a table at which his client was seated but he instructed the drugs were not his.

The submissions prompted Magistrate Graham Lee to interject that the defendant claimed the drugs weren’t his yet he had tested positive for the very drug when driving.

“I find that extraordinary,” Mr Lee said.

Mr Creevey said Loveday instructed he only used the drug recreationally.

His client was on an NDIS program and the loss of his driver’s licence would be difficult for him as he lived alone and would have to walk.

Mr Lee placed Loveday on 12 months probation to include random testing for illicit drugs and disqualified him from holding or obtaining a driver’s licence for one month.