A drug-dealing dad who turned to peddling cocaine and heroin in order to “provide for his family” after he lost his job in the pandemic has been jailed.
Greg Robertson, 33, went into panic mode when police pulled over a car he was travelling in, fleeing on foot and tossing dozens of bags of Class A drugs into nearby bushes.
The 33-year-old left 148 bags of cocaine and heroin, worth almost £5,000, at the scene, Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told.
Fiscal depute Carol Gammie said officers spied the car on Cairncry Road in Aberdeen at 9.45am on September 16, 2020.
And as the dad-of-two tried to flee, a passerby saw him fling two zip lock bags of drugs over a bush and into someone’s garden.
Flung Class A drugs into garden
One parcel was found to contain 100 bags of 0.14g deals of heroin, with a street value of up to £3,000.
The second contained 48 small bags of 0.14g of cocaine, worth up to £960.
A further 50 small bags of cocaine, worth £1,000, were also found in the car.
Robertson admitted two counts of being concerned in the supply of a controlled drug.
Defence agent Chris Maitland said the offshore worker had started dealing to “provide for his family” after being made redundant during the pandemic.
Dealt drugs to ‘provide for family’
“He describes his actions as a very stupid decision,” the solicitor said.
“He was made redundant in February 2020 during Covid and struggled financially until November 2020 when he got a job on an ad-hoc basis.
“He felt pressured to provide for his family.
“He has made positive progress in a couple of years and is no longer associated with the people that got him involved in this.”
He said Robertson, who has since regained full-time work, was “anxious” to avoid prison and stressed that a search of his home and phone came up clean at the time.
However, Sheriff Morag McLaughlin said she could not spare him jail given his previous analogous conviction.
“I note the progress you have made and that’s to your credit,” she told Robertson. “I note you have not reoffended.
“However, I cannot look past your record and I cannot look past you making this decision against a background of an analogous conviction.”
She jailed Robertson, of Byron Crescent, Aberdeen, for 12 months.
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