A senior bikie enforcer who once sued the Northern Territory Police will spend the majority of 2020 in jail after he pleaded guilty to numerous criminal drug charges.
Hells Angels sergeant-at-arms Phillip O’Shea and an associate were arrested and charged after a police raid on his home and a tattoo shop near Darwin on January 8 uncovered the drug ice and a gun.
O’Shea, 46, was charged and on Wednesday pleaded guilty to supplying a traffickable quantity of methamphetamine, possession of a prohibited weapon, and drug driving as he tested positive for meth in his system.
Police had found more than seven grams of meth and had evidence of him selling the drug on numerous occasions over a one-month period leading up to Christmas last year, prosecutor Naomi Loudon told the Darwin Local Court.
He was selling the drug as a commercial enterprise for financial benefit and not to support any personal use of methamphetamine although he was a user, she said.
The drug was a “harmful schedule one substance prevalent here in Darwin and the Northern Territory and sells for a higher amount here than other jurisdictions” which was a motivation for drug dealers, Ms Loudon said.It was therefore important any sentence be a deterrent, punishment and denunciation before the community, she said.
Judge Elisabeth Armitage indicated that she would impose an 18-month jail term to be suspended after nine months at a sentencing hearing to be held on April 23.
O’Shea, who appeared via video link from prison, has been in jail since January, meaning he would be eligible for release in October.
O’Shea, a father of five, unsuccessfully sued NT police in 2018 over his violent arrest in a separate case in 2017 and was himself found guilty over charges relating to the incident.
Police bodycam footage caught the arrest during which a violent struggle broke out with the 198cm powerfully built O’Shea while his toddler daughter cried outside and his mother and sick father, who has cancer, protested at his treatment.
He was found guilty on that occasion with resisting police, assaulting police and possession of a traffickable amount of ice and spent time in jail.
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Source: 9news