A 25-YEAR-OLD labourer was sentenced to four years and three months in prison yesterday for possession of Ecstasy with intent to supply. Police caught Marcio Martins with up to £480-worth of the Class A drug on New Year’s Eve. He had been due to deliver 30 tablets to someone in the Golden Monkey nightclub at about 10.30 that night, the Royal Court heard.

‘Acting as a custodian and delivery man of drugs is a key link in the evil drug trafficking chain,’ said Deputy Bailiff Geoffrey Rowland.

Martins said that a friend had given him 35 pills that evening. In return for delivering them Martins could keep five.

He put the stronger one, marked with a Red Bull logo, in his pocket and the other four, marked with the Coca Cola emblem, in the car in which a female friend drove him and another man into Town. But police officers on patrol stopped the black Ford Fiesta hire car at the bottom of Vauvert, St Peter Port, at about 8.50pm and found the white tablet in his trouser pocket. Martins said it was his but denied having more. But an officer found 30 in a small clear bag in his sweatshirt pocket.

Martins was arrested and said that he was holding the tablets for someone else, but would not say who.

‘I can’t tell you, they will mess me up – I’ll be dead,’ he said. He added that it was the first time he had delivered drugs.

An officer found the other four tablets, which Martins did not want because they took ‘too long to work’, in the car’s centre console. Martins gave two to the driver and intended to supply the remaining two to other friends.

Crown Advocate Philip Robey, prosecuting, said that the driver had already been dealt with for possession.

Analysis of the drugs showed that the Red Bull tablets contained about 40% MDMA, or Ecstasy, while the Coca Cola ones were 35% pure.

Advocate Robey said that MDMA tablets could be sold locally for between £10 and £15 each, meaning that the 32 which Martins intended to supply had a Guernsey street value of between £320 and £480.

The Deputy Bailiff said that this sum was lower than in the past, reflecting increased quantities on the streets of Guernsey and the lower purity of some of the tablets.

Law Officers could have prosecuted Martins for possession for personal use of the single tablet but saw fit not to, he said.

Defending, Advocate Chris Green said that Martins was ‘not a bad character’.

He had pleaded guilty and cooperated with the authorities. He was unaware that as a custodian of the drugs, he was guilty of intent to supply.

‘Ignorance is no defence, but it illustrates how much of an amateur he was,’ said Advocate Green.

Martins, who has a child in France, was very sorry for his involvement.

He had no relevant previous convictions but he was jailed for four months after a suspended sentence was activated for driving offences in 2003.

Martins, who came to Guernsey in 1999 and rented a room in Town before his arrest, had a disturbed childhood due to his violent and alcoholic father.

Mr Rowland said that this was no excuse for trafficking in Class A drugs.

He said that Ecstasy could kill people, had serious physical effects and affected people’s behaviour.

Sentencing Martins, a Madeiran who had an interpreter in court, Mr Rowland and the Jurats took a starting point of seven years, which they reduced by one third for his guilty plea.

They sentenced Martins to four years and three months, starting from the time he was taken into custody on 31 December 2003.

The maximum sentence for possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply is life imprisonment.