British woman gets a year in prison for cocaine smuggling
Published:Wednesday | May 24, 2023 | 12:23 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Ashanta Ferguson, the British woman who was arrested last November after she was caught trying to smuggle four and a half pounds of cocaine onto an outgoing flight to England, has been sentenced to 12 months in prison.
Ferguson was given the sentence in the St James Parish Court on Monday after pleading guilty to possession, dealing, and attempting to export cocaine before presiding Parish Judge Kaysha Grant Pryce.
During Ferguson’s sentencing hearing, her attorney, Charles Williams, said she had been duped into carrying the cocaine by a man with whom she was intimately involved, and noted that the defendant had not wasted the court’s time.
“She came for two weeks to spend time with her father, and while there she met a young man, for whom she got pregnant. On the way to the airport, the young man gave her something and asked her to take it up [to England] for him. But whether or not you are academically smart, you still have to have common sense, and you cannot say you did not know,” said Williams.
Judge Grant Pryce expressed bewilderment that the accused woman, who was employed as a peer counsellor in Britain, would take part in trafficking cocaine.
“These are very serious matters, and this was not a small personal amount of cocaine, plus it has a tremendously high street value out there. I find it strange that a peer counsellor, a person trained to mentor young minds, would contemplate such an activity, but I am not holding that against you,” said Grant Pryce. “However, I cannot punish you with a slap on the wrist.”
In addition to the mandatory 12-month prison sentence, Ferguson was ordered to pay a fine of $1 million for possession of cocaine, and $500,000 for attempting to export cocaine, with an additional nine-month prison term if the fines are not paid. She was admonished and discharged for dealing in cocaine.
The facts are that on November 19, 2022, at 7 p.m., Ferguson was at the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, St James, preparing to board a departing flight to the United Kingdom, when her luggage was subjected to a routine search. During the search, two packages of cocaine with a street value of approximately £50,000 (J$9.5 million) were found concealed in false compartments of her luggage.
Ferguson was subsequently interviewed in the presence of her attorney on November 21, following which she was arrested and charged.
Ferguson is the third British national to be sentenced on cocaine-smuggling charges recently, following last Friday’s sentencing of 37-year-old Luke Bradly and 59-year-old Loran Bartley on separate cocaine charges. The men, who each attempted to smuggle 11 pounds of cocaine through the Sangster International Airport on May 6, were each sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment and a fine of $1.5 million.
To date, there have been eight recently reported cases of British nationals being arrested and charged in relation to cocaine smuggling at the Sangster International Airport.