A Brighton drug dealer who hid crack cocaine and heroin in his anus has been jailed for nine and a half years by a judge at Lewes Crown Court.
Henry MacFarlane, 65, tried to hide his stash there on two separate occasions – and one time the drugs were spotted during a scan at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, in Brighton.
On another occasion he was arrested at a Brighton property where police had found a man dead from a heroin overdose a short while before.
No link was suggested in court between MacFarlane – described by the judge as a “persistent and prolific drug dealer” – and the death of the man whose body was found.
During the coronavirus pandemic, MacFarlane was housed in Kendal Court, Newhaven, by Brighton and Hove City Council along with dozens of vulnerable homeless people – some of them addicts.
Police raided MacFarlane’s Kendal Court flat on Friday 18 December 2020, the court was told on Tuesday (6 September).
Sarah Lindop, prosecuting, said: “During the course of a search of the premises, the following items were seized …
“Fourteen crack cocaine deals, 2.11 grams of loose crack cocaine, 35 deals of heroin, £650 in cash, a number of phones, iPads and SIMs – some of them charging – and scales and other paraphernalia consistent with drug dealing. The total value of the drugs is estimated at £1,080.”
On Tuesday 2 March last year, Miss Lindop said, police went to a property in Ditchling Road, Brighton, where they found a man who had died of a heroin overdose.
She said: “Police returned to the premises later in the day and found the defendant in a small bathroom. He was arrested.
“Once in custody, he produced from his anus 10 crack cocaine deals, nine heroin deals and a large lump of heroin.
“The total value of the drugs is estimated at £1,690.”
In February this year, MacFarlane, of Parkmead, Park Crescent Terrace, Brighton, was taken to the Royal Sussex having appeared to have suffered an overdose.
Miss Lindop said: “As part of his treatment, he had a scan which showed foreign objects in his anus.
“In due course, he passed 19 deals of crack cocaine, a deal of heroin, a 1.45g lump of heroin and a golf ball sized 33.9g lump of cocaine – not crack.
“The total value of the drugs, including if the cocaine had been converted into crack, is estimated at £1,670 to £3,970.”
Jonathan Ray, defending, said that he overdosed because “yardies from Brixton” abducted him over a drugs debt, held him down and poured heroin into his mouth.
MacFarlane was arrested again in March when he was found to have been cuckooing a man called Paul Warren at a flat in Queensway, Brighton.
Miss Lindop said that when he was stopped by police, “he was seen to be gripping tightly something in his right trouser pocket.”
She said that he was found to have two balls of cling film containing individual wraps of a white substance which turned out to be 4g to 5g of cocaine.
MacFarlane said that it was for personal use and that he used three to four wraps a day.
He pleaded guilty to seven counts of having class A drugs with intent to supply and one charge of having criminal property.
The court was told that he had several previous convictions and had been jailed at least three times for having hard drugs with intent to supply.
He was given four years at Blackfriars Crown Court, in London, in April 1998 for having crack cocaine with intent to supply.
He was jailed for 10 years at Lewes Crown Court in June 2002 for having cocaine with intent to supply – as was a fellow dealer, Orren Fraser, who was 36 at the time.
Judge David Rennie told the pair: “Class A drugs change young lives – and sometimes snuff them out altogether. People like you could not care less about the damaged lives you leave behind.”
MacFarlane and Fraser, both from Jamaica, dealt drugs from two flats in Crossbush Way, Whitehawk. The court was told that both men had been jailed before and that Fraser had previously been deported to Jamaica.
When police raided the Whitehawk flats – one where they lived and the other used as a store – detectives found drugs worth £45,000 and thousands of pounds in cash.
MacFarlane was jailed again at Lewes for five and half years in July 2015 for having heroin with intent to supply.
Mr Ray told the court on Tuesday: “He is an average street seller on the lower rung of the supply ladder. (He deals) to feed his own habit.”
Judge Christine Laing, the honorary recorder of Brighton and Hove, said: “I struggle to think of a more persistent and prolific drug dealer to have come before me in all my years sitting at this court.”
No prison sentence had acted as a deterrent, she said, despite the help offered over the years, including in prison.
Judge Laing added: “As you’ve been released, you just go straight back to it.
“About 70 per cent of all crimes that come before this court have class A drugs at their heart.
“There is a minimum mandatory term of seven years … you’ve received that before.”
The judge imposed a sentence of nine and a half years on each count of having class A drugs with intent to supply and six months, to be served concurrently, for having criminal property.
She ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the drugs and paraphernalia and the forfeiture of the cash.
