Woman charged with trafficking by police targeting another dealer

Though she had been on Centrelink payments at the time, $36,500 had been credited to her bank account during the offending period.

The 25-year-old woman pleaded guilty before Toowoomba Supreme Court to trafficking drugs.

A WOMAN who trafficked drugs from Toowoomba to St George was nailed by police targeting another drug dealer.

Crown prosecutor Mel Smith told Toowoomba Supreme Court a police operation had been set up to target a known trafficker of drugs in the country towns west of Toowoomba.

As part of the investigations, police had scooped onto the another man dealing drugs who had sourced drugs from Katrina Leigh Edmondstone.

Edmondstone, then 24, and the man had been in a relationship but each maintained a customer base of their own.

She had a customer base of about 15 at the time to whom she sold meth, ecstasy, cannabis and soboxone, Ms Wilson said.

Edmondstone had sourced drugs from a woman in Inglewood and despite her being on Centrelink payments at the time, some $36,500 had gone into her bank account over the 79 day period leading up to December 2019, she said.

Edmondstone and her partner had broken into the Inglewood woman’s home on November 12, 2019, and stolen $15,000 cash, Ms Wilson said.

Edmonstone, who up until this offending had only a minor criminal history, pleaded guilty to trafficking, burglary and stealing and other drugs offences.

The court heard she had spent 130 days in custody after her arrest in December 2019 and had been on bail since her release last April.

She had undergone counselling and had been clean of drugs since and was now pregnant with a child due in June.

Justice David Jackson sentenced Edmondstone to four years, six months in jail but, declaring the 130 days pre-sentence custody as time served, ordered the term be suspended after those 130 days for four years and six months.

She was also placed on three years probation.