Trio sentenced for drug dealing in Fraserburgh
Three Fraserburgh dealers who sold cocaine and heroin on behalf of a Liverpool crime gang have been sentenced for their crimes.
Helen Beck, Katherine Law, and Billy Paterson admitted to selling cocaine between August and September in 2022, with Law and Paterson additionally offering heroin to buyers from April.
The group had been operating under the control of a Liverpudlian crime group which went by the moniker Sunny.
At Peterhead Sheriff Court, the two women involved in the scheme were spared jail but handed lengthy unpaid work orders.
For his part, Paterson, of no fixed abode, was handed time behind bars.
Fiscal depute Jennifer Pritchard told the court that the trio had come to the attention of police when they received intelligence that Sunny was operating in the area.
Surveillance operations captured each of the three dealing drugs throughout the year.
The police operation also monitored calls and text messages and Ms Pritchard revealed that Paterson, 33, received 84 calls and messages from Sunny in just one day.
In mitigation, each of their defence solicitors spoke on their client's background circumstances.
Iain Jane, representing Beck, whose address was given as Howatt Park in Sandhaven, said the 47-year-old had been struggling mentally due to legal issues surrounding her daughter at the time.
'A legal proceeding at the High Court of Judiciary has led to her having a relapse,' he said.
'Thereafter, she is effectively taken advantage of.'
Alannah Comerford, representing Law, of Westshore Gardens in Fraserburgh, said her 35-year-old client was 'very honest' in why she got involved in drug dealing.
'Miss Law's life is very different at this stage than it was in 2022,' she added.
'She doesn't have the habit she did have.'
Paterson's agent, Sam Milligan, acknowledged his client had a previous conviction for a similar charge in 2023.
'The wheels very much come off at the end of 2021,' Mr Milligan said of his personal life.
'It clearly occurs at a time in Mr Paterson's life when he was in considerable difficulties.'
Sentencing each of the three separately, Sheriff Craig Findlater said drug dealing 'destroys lives'.
'Drug dealing, each of you knows and understands, destroys lives, in many ways your lives are amongst the lives negatively impacted by drug dealing,' he said.
Ordering Paterson to spend 18 months behind bars, he added: 'There are no other options realistically open to this court than a custodial disposal.'
On the women, who will both be under the supervision of the social work department for two years with an instruction to engage with drug treatment services, he added: 'You two are in similar positions in the sense that your own addictions have caused you to make some shockingly poor decisions which have put your liberty at risk.'
Law and Beck will also be forced to carry out 220 hours of unpaid work within the community over the next year.
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