Notts teen “lured into crime” waited three years for court date

Dante McKoy was 17 when he ran from officers on Mansfield Road, after he and two others were seen acting suspiciously in the city centre, on October 6, 2017, prosecutor Alan Murphy said.

He escaped through the Victoria Centre, discarding a large kitchen knife and six one-gram deals of cannabis, before he was arrested on Glasshouse Street.

At his home in Broxtowe, police found seven more deals of cannabis, scales, benzocaine and more than £1,000 in cash.

Messages on his mobile phone "made it quite clear" he had been selling cannabis as a street dealer, Mr Murphy added.

The court heard he has no previous convictions.

McKoy, now 21, of Bramley Road, Nottingham, pleaded guilty to supplying cannabis and possession with intent to supply the Class B drug, on January 27, 2020.

Judge Stuart Rafferty QC told him: "I read your letter with interest. It is refreshing to see that somebody is prepared to tell the truth about themselves and realise just how easy it is to be misled by other people.

"Plainly you had been lured into a criminal enterprise."

The judge said a drugs officer was not available until a year after McKoy's arrest "for reasons which I can't begin to understand," and it took another 13 months to requisition him to appear at the magistrates’ court, before he finally appeared at the crown court in February.

Judge Rafferty said: "Injustice has been done to you, as it has been done to so many people by reason of unnecessary delay.

"In one sense you are entitled to feel aggrieved because you have had this hanging over you for so long.”

He said the court's hands were tied by a "sorry, and indeed woeful, catalogue of events."

He imposed an 18 month community order, with 100 hours of unpaid work, because of the defendant’s “positive efforts to turn his life around.”

"It would have been a much higher order, but I take account of the time that has gone by," the judge told McKoy.

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