A sheriff hit out at Scotland’s justice system yesterday after watching a dealer visit prison to carry out a drug drop shortly after being freed early from her own jail sentence.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis drily remarked on the “wisdom” of freeing drug dealing grandmother Ashley Cussick less than seven months into a two-year prison sentence.
He attacked the early release after viewing CCTV footage of Cussick visiting Perth Prison to hand an illicit drugs package over to her partner James Gorrie.
He jailed both at Perth Sheriff Court on Tuesday when they admitted various charges relating to the handover of cannabis and Etizolam within the maximum security jail on May 19 last year.
Sheriff Foulis said: “This is a person who was convicted of being concerned in the supply of drugs back in 2009 and was sentenced to two years for a directly analogous offence in 2010.
“She also breached probation and got a further 18 months consecutive sentence for the first offence.
“She is then sentenced to custody for possession of heroin and later in 2018 she is sentenced to two years for supply.
“Effectively she serves – against a background where all her previous offending is drugs related – under seven months. The less said about that the better. It is not her fault, but one does begin to wonder.”
Cussick, a prisoner at Polmont, admitted being concerned in the supply of cannabis resin and Etizolam at Perth Prison on May 19.
Gorrie, a prisoner at Perth, admitted possessing both drugs and trying to pervert the course of justice by putting the drugs in his pants and running off.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.