Stashed drugs for brother

Spared jail sentence

A student has been fined after admitting holding a stash of almost £800 of drugs for her brother.

Gemma Grace Gardiner, of Ochil Crescent, appeared at Stirling Sheriff Court on Wednesday.

The 24-year-old had previously pleaded guilty to a charge of being concerned in the supply of diazepam at her home address on March 30.

Fiscal Depute Anne Orr said police had searched the property after receiving information from the public, and the tablets had been found in a rucksack in a cupboard.

“She said that the rucksack belonged to her brother,” Miss Orr told the court. “She had been asked to hold on to it but he had told her not to look inside it.

“She said she didn’t know what was in it but had suspicions that her brother dealt in drugs.”

A total of 797 tablets - worth £797 - were recovered and the court heard that Gardiner’s brother had been detained and questioned by police in relation to the drugs, but had said nothing.

Defending, Harry Couchlin said that Gardiner - who wants to work in social work and is on an access course for Stirling University - had made a foolish mistake in allowing her brother to leave the bag.

He said: “She is a first offender who has been drawn into a matter that she had no idea of the seriousness of.”

Sheriff William Gilchrist fined Gardiner £300, discounted from £400 as a result of her guilty plea, and said that he had spared her from custody.

He said: “There has to have been a slight extent to which you suspected that these were drugs that belonged to your brother, and hence you were concerned in the supplying of drugs.”