Cannabis ‘doctor’ sent to prison for 2 years

Thursday 26 April 2018

A pensioner who admitted supplying cannabis to customers ‘of a certain age’ to help pain symptoms for eight years, as well as treating himself with the drug, has been sentenced to two years in prison.

65-year-old Ralph Lloyd Simon admitted nine counts of drug offences and three counts of firearms offences after a search by police and custom officers of his farm last September found over 12 kilos of cannabis, £40,000 in cash, cocaine and ecstasy as well as two rusty shot guns with ammunition.

Prosecuting, Advocate Richard Pedley told the Royal Court that the drugs and cash were “scattered around the house and outbuildings” of Elm Farm in St. Peter where Simon lived, hidden in various places like under a settee cushion and in a box of bird nuts.

Court Commissioner Sir Michael Birt and Jurats Crill, Olsen, Ramsden, Dulake and Kerley, heard that Simon had appeared anxious throughout the search – which was part of a wider operation that has led to the arrest of two other people – but was polite and co-operative; even directing the officers to places where cash and drugs were stashed and where he had “a couple of plants growing outside” leading to a cultivation of cannabis offence.

Simon owned up to all the discoveries apart from a tub of powder thought to be MDMA (ecstasy) and two bags of over eight kilos of cannabis found in the out-buildings.

He told police “I didn’t know it was there, I don’t even know if it was mine” referring to the ecstasy powder, which was the equivalent of 1,730 tablets, and six ‘nine bars’ of cannabis resin wrapped up in a yellow carrier bag, found in the tool shed.

Simon did admit that he knew there was a bag with over seven kilos of cannabis in an outside storage area when he discovered it one day, but that it belonged to someone else, so he didn’t do anything with it out of fear.  

Pictured: Ralph Simon was sentenced by the Royal Court to two years in prison. 

The pensioner openly admitted during the police interview that he used cannabis daily to relieve pain, but had also started using cocaine recently as it gave him “a lift” in the morning and he used cannabis to “chill” at the end of the day.  He also described how he also started supplying his ‘mature’ friends and acquaintances who “came to him by choice” to also use cannabis to relieve ailments.

He explained that he would normally buy one kilo of cannabis at a time for £8,000, and did purchase five kilos one time when it was “really good stuff” but wasn’t tempted by 10 kilos at a cheaper price.

The Royal Court heard that the ammunition found in a kitchen drawer dated back to 1947 and wasn’t for the shotguns found in the house. Simon acknowledged the shotguns, telling officers that one had belonged to his grandfather but they hadn’t been touched for years.

Advocate Pedley requested the court to hand down a prison sentence of three years, but Advocate David Steenson disagreed, requesting that Simon serves a community service order instead.

Advocate Steenson argued that the largest quantity of cannabis found on the farm did not belong to Simon and was left there without his knowledge as well as the ecstasy power so a prison sentence “is just too much for this peculiar offence of minor minding.”

He described Simon as a “nice chap” who simply “doesn’t throw away things very easily” referring to the shotguns, bag of cannabis dumped on his property and the ecstasy tablets that were so old that they had disintegrated into powder. He reiterated that the drugs were for medicinal purposes and that he didn’t “sell drugs to young people and doesn’t corrupt people.”

Pictured: Ralph Simon has been handed a shorter prison sentence of two years due to the assistance he gave police.  

The defence also asked the court to be sympathetic towards Simon’s family situation as he regularly visited his elderly parents who suffers from dementia and Alzheimer’s, but hasn’t seen them recently as he’s too ashamed to have them visit him in prison over the past year while he’s been in custody.

Advocate Steenson reasoned that a community service order, on top of the time he’s already served in prison, would be sufficient and would give him “an opportunity for him to see his parents before it’s too late.”

Handing down the court decision, Sir Michael Birt told Simon that his case was “extremely unusual” but that he had been “in breach of the law for some time” and he “did nothing to alert the police or destroy” the large quantities of cannabis and ecstasy powder that he denied owning.

The Commissioner said the court took into consideration his character saying it’s “always sad to see a 65-year-old of good character to come to court” and the role he has in his parent’s life by reducing his prison sentence to around three years.

But he added that due to the information Simon gave to police about his supplier and some of his customers, the court has rewarded him with a substantial discount as “the court would encourage others to do likewise” in the fight against drug production.

Sir Michael Birt sentenced Simon to two years in prison and ordered the drugs and firearms to be destroyed.