The sales director of a wine merchants, caught for the second time this year with cocaine as he entertained clients, has dodged prison with a suspended sentence.
Robert Scott Phillips, 40, of Osborne Road, Hornchurch, Essex pleaded guilty to possessing five wraps of the party drug when his black Jaguar car was stopped by City of London police on August 16.
Prosecutor Ms Safira Afzal told City of London Magistrates Court (pictured) officers pulled over Phillips, who had two passengers with him, and immediately admitted he had the cocaine in his pocket.
The married father-of-two is currently receiving drug counselling after a similar conviction in January and the probation service urged the court not to activate a suspended sentence hanging over him.
The court was told Phillips was out entertaining clients as his Polish wife and children, aged five and eight years-old, were visiting her home country.
“You have a young family, have a leadership position in a business and the probation service have told us you are responding to the previous orders and that is what is stopping you going to prison today,” bench chairman Doug Rice told the defendant.
“It was a knife-edge decision and you were very close to going down.
“Courts do not place suspended sentences on defendants to find six months later they have stuck two fingers up at them.
“Maybe you have caught us on a good day. You are a lucky man.”
Phillips was sentenced to four weeks imprisonment, suspended for six months, ordered to pay £85 costs and placed on a six-month supervision order with a drug rehabilitation requirement.
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