A Shepparton man was involved in trafficking drugs on an “almost daily basis” and had a wide customer base, a court has heard.
Troy Ashley Scott, 50, of Shepparton, pleaded guilty in the Shepparton County Court to trafficking methamphetamine, trafficking butanediol, handling stolen goods, failing to comply with police direction and related summary offences of committing an indictable offence while on bail and contravening a conduct condition while on bail.
Prosecutor David Cordy said police caught Scott being involved in methamphetamine trafficking at least 97 times through multiple phone calls and messages they intercepted from July 30, 2022, to October 24, 2022.
Scott trafficked a total of 743.5g of methamphetamines, with separate transactions ranging from 0.5g to 84g at a time.
Mr Cordy said Scott was buying an ounce of methamphetamines for about $5000, and would sell an ounce for about $5500 to $6000.
Scott also trafficked a total of 615ml of butanediol over five separate transactions.
Police found two zip-lock bags containing 1.7g of methamphetamines, a container of 12.8g of butanediol, a total of $2525 cash, four mobile phones, empty zip-lock bags, digital scales, a tick sheet, jewellery and 10 Viagra tablets when they searched Scott’s vacant Shepparton home on October 30, 2022.
Police found Scott with $850 cash, a stolen Yamaha motorbike and one Viagra tablet on him at a different Shepparton house, and Scott refused to give police access to his mobile phone.
Mr Cordy said Scott was “running a business, pure and simple”, and this offending was not a one-off, as he had been convicted and sentenced for similar offences.
“He gets out, behaves himself for a while, then does it again. He knows what the end result is,” he said.
Scott’s defence lawyer Manny Brennan said his client accepted the offending wasn’t low-level, however with some exceptions, most of the trafficking was “street level”.
Mr Brennan told the court Scott grew up in Shepparton and had a “traumatic start to life” after he witnessed heavy drinking and violence on a daily basis.
When Scott was 15 years old he moved out of home and was couch-surfing and living on the streets, and began using methamphetamines daily when he was 16 years old, which shaped his relationship to drugs and unhealthy attitude to substance abuse, Mr Brennan said.
Mr Brennan said Scott didn’t make much income out of the trafficking, and was trying to fund his drug habit after he “slipped back into substance abuse” when he and his partner separated in March 2021.
Medical reports suggested there was a “significant connection” between his moderate personality disorder and addiction issues, and the neglect and exposure to drugs he experienced as a child, Mr Brennan said.
Mr Brennan said the work Scott had done on himself in custody over the past one-and-a-half years had been “transformative”, and he had been involved in many programs, not just to “tick a box”, but to set himself up for when he is released because he is “still trying to make something of his life”.
The intensity of his addiction had made it difficult for him to maintain consistent employment, but when he is in a “drug free... stable environment”, he is “a thriving man who has a lot to offer”, Mr Brennan said.
Scott will be sentenced in Shepparton County Court in September.