By Scunthorpe man sentenced after nurse found crack cocaine and heroin during his hospital stay
Scunthorpe man Allan Dawson, 44, was sentenced today at Grimsby Crown Court to four and a half years imprisonment for a string of drug offences.
In March last year, Mr Dawson was arrested and charged with the possession of Class A and Class B drugs, namely crack cocaine and cannabis.
Whilst out on bail for this offence, Mr Dawson was again arrested in September for the possession of and intent to supply cocaine and the possession of heroin.
He was approached by two men who asked him if he would sell drugs to them. He refused on the basis that he “wouldn’t sell to strangers” and only to “people he knew”.
The men then violently attacked Dawson with a hammer and stabbed him several times with a kitchen knife.
He spent several days in Scunthorpe General Hospital after the attack, undergoing surgery under general anaesthetic.
When he was due to be moved to another area of the hospital, a nurse began collecting his items and found a needle in a black bag.
The nurse informed the defendant that she needed to collect the rest of his items, in which 24 wraps of drugs were found.
When police officers attended the scene they seized heroin and crack cocaine along with drug paraphernalia.
Richard Butters, defending Mr Dawson, told the court how the defendant had been drug and “trouble-free” for 12 years until 2017.
Mr Butters said: “He was working in good, well-paid jobs and holding down those jobs and being a productive member of society. His life went back into decline with a return to drugs in 2017.
“Many members of his family who he was close to all died in that year. He was in such despair. He did not have counselling then and he could not handle life.
“He said that his mother in law had had a cancer removed from her lung and she was at his house and had a pulmonary embolism out of her mouth and she died in his arms.
“He said he should have had counselling because of that incident but he didn’t. He went to the solace of drugs after many years which is a great pity.
“He has put three stone back on in weight and is feeling extremely positive. He told me this morning that this is the last time he is coming to this jail. He said ‘I have got so much going for me’. He speaks two foreign languages and has trained as a plumber.”
When sentencing the defendant, District Judge Craig Hassall took into account Mr Dawson’s guilty plea, reducing a five-year prison sentence to four and a half years.
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