Drug dealer ordered to repay £300 of £3,000 he made

A Merthyr Tydfil man caught with £15,000 worth of crack cocaine and cocaine has been ordered to repay just £300 of the thousands he made from dealing drugs.

Dylan Davies, 24, of Swansea Road, was at home on June 26 last year when police arrived to search his property. Officers discovered a green bag containing white rocks, along with a carrier bag holding further rocks and scales covered in white powder residue.

The haul proved significant. The green bag contained 7g of crack cocaine valued between £200 and £300, whilst the carrier bag held 168g of cocaine worth between £7,800 and £13,000. A further bag contained 58g of crack cocaine, valued between £1,200 and £3,000. Police also seized £300 in cash and two additional sets of scales.

When questioned, Davies claimed the drugs were for his own personal use. However, prosecutor Mari Watkins told Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court that he refused to provide the PIN number for his phone.

The court heard Davies has seven previous convictions, including possession with intent to supply crack cocaine and assaulting emergency workers, which previously landed him with 31 months imprisonment.

Defence barrister Hywel Davies told the court his client has a four-year-old daughter he is missing out on spending time with, and hopes to find work on the railways as an engineer foreman upon his release. The barrister explained Davies was raised in a home where “police raids and drugs were common” and he had a “poor beginning to his life”.

Passing sentence, Judge Simon Mills said: “Ultimately this was a choice you made, you knew there would be consequences for that.”

Davies was jailed for 44 months after pleading guilty to two counts of possession with intent to supply class A drugs.

At a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Cardiff Crown Court on Tuesday, the court heard Davies benefited £3,097 from his offending but only has assets worth £300. Judge Paul Hobson ordered him to pay that sum or serve an additional seven days imprisonment in default.