The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

A 24-YEAR-OLD man who was found with a quantity of marijuana was placed on probation for one year.

Police arrested Keith Stubbs after they found 22 grams of Indian hemp in his home on December 6.

He pleaded guilty to one count of simple possession during a hearing before Deputy Chief Magistrate Andrew Forbes.

The prosecution said that day, officers, acting on information, went to a residence on Saunders Street. Upon their arrival, they knocked on the door and informed Stubbs that his home would be searched for dangerous drugs and firearms.

During their investigation, officers discovered a clear plastic wrap containing suspected marijuana in a jewellery box in the master bedroom of the home. Stubbs was subsequently arrested and taken to the Drug Enforcement Unit.

There he admitted to the offence in an interview with police. The prosecution said at the time, Stubbs told officers the drugs were his and nobody else in the house knew that he had them.

During the hearing, Stubbs’ counsel told the magistrate his client cooperated with police from the onset of their investigation. He also noted the “relatively small amount” of the drugs that were found in Stubbs’s possession and asked the court to consider the defendant’s early guilty plea when using its discretion.

Stubbs also told the court that he had started smoking when he was in jail.

In response, Magistrate Forbes reminded Stubbs that the maximum penalty for dangerous drug possession was a $150,000 fine or five years in prison. He said the fact that Stubbs had already spent time on remand meant he should have an “appreciation for what prison” was like.

As a result, he placed the accused on a year’s probation on the condition that he would be of good behaviour during that time. Magistrate Forbes warned Stubbs that if he wasn’t, he would be sentenced to three months behind bars.