Sound engineer was half naked and trying to flush drugs down the toilet in Mansfield
A sound engineer who resorted to selling hard drugs in Mansfield was half naked and trying to flush cocaine and heroin down the toilet when he was caught dealing for the second time.
Police first spotted Tobe Ojukwu driving an uninsured car through the town centre and had to activate their sirens and blue lights before he pulled over on August 1 2023.
He had “pinhole eyes” and was under the influence of cannabis, said Jonathan Dunne, prosecuting.
A search of his car revealed wraps of heroin and crack cocaine worth £450. Mobile phone evidence proved he had been dealing since September 2022 and that he “wasn’t at the bottom of the drug dealing chain.”
In one message to his girlfriend, the Nigerian national said, "Maybe you don't know what the drugs business is like.”
Nottingham Crown Court heard he played an “operational management function in the chain with the expectation of significant profits.”
He was on bail for that offence when police raided his Stockwell Court home on June 6, 2024.
Officers found a woman lying on a matress while Ojukwu was half naked on the toilet he had just flushed.
A constable was able to fish out a plastic package containing 37 wraps of crack and 94 of heroin, as well as £605 in cash and four phones.
Clarkson Baptiste, mitigating, said Ojukwu, of previous good character, came to the UK with his disabled younger brother in 2020, and is liable to be deported upon his release.
Although he has a qualification in architecture and initially stayed out of trouble, he worked illegally in restaurants as a dishwasher before finding himself homeless.
Cannabis use led him into criminal circles and he was taken under the wing of someone “higher up the drug chain” who was “impressed by his sound engineering skills.” Ojukwu voluntarily travelled to Chesterfield where he was directed to sell drugs in Mansfield.
“He didn’t receive lavish profts and the money seized on both occasions was modest,” Mr Baptiste added.
Ojukwu, aged 29, formerly of Froghopper Lane, Sutton, pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing class A drugs with intent to supply on previous occasions.
On Tuesday, Recorder Balraj Bhatia KC jailed him for six and a half years.