A drug-dealer’s girlfriend has been jailed for falsely convincing a government agency he was the victim of modern-day slavery - almost springing him from custody.Girlfriend: Shannon Price
Remarkably, the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) concluded the heroin and crack cocaine dealer was a victim, based partly on the bogus threatening letter the girlfriend sent to HMP Belmarsh.
However, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police were not convinced and their investigation exposed the plan.
At Woolwich Crown Court Shannon Price, 25, received ten months imprisonment and her friend Taylor Woolcock, 23, received eight months.
Mother-of-two Price convinced Woolcock to write the prison letter to drug-dealer Oluwaseyi Olorisade, 31, who was later sentenced to five-and-a-half years imprisonment.
He was on remand when the letter was intercepted, which read: “We can get to you in Belmarsh. You’ve been stabbed before, we can get to you. Make sure you give no names, don’t f*** with me. You know who this is.”
Cleaner Price, of The Copperfields, Tupman Close, Rochester and security guard Woolcock, of Ann’s Place, Stoke, Plymouth both pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice between October and November, 2020.
Prosecutor Gareth Munday told the court Price’s boyfriend was charged with supplying heroin and crack cocaine. “His defence was that he was a victim of modern-day slavery.
“He said he was threatened by others and forced to supply drugs and had been stabbed in the past.”
The NRM concluded Olorisade was a victim of modern-day slavery, but police found Woolcock’s fingerprints on the letter and she told officers Price asked her to write and send it.
“She said Price had been putting an awful lot of pressure on her to assist. She said she had been massively pressured into it by Price, who told her it would assist her boyfriend’s defence.
“She knew he was not a nice individual and described him as a middle-man in drugs supply.”
When Price was arrested she told police: “It’s not as if I put a gun to her head,” added the prosecutor. “She also said her boyfriend had not asked her to do it.”
The court heard the single mum-of-two endured an abusive childhood and had been brought up in the care system.
Her lawyer Charlieann Sherriff told the court: "She does not accept she was responsible for any threats or pressure and this was not significantly thought out or planned.
"She believed she was in a stable relationship with her boyfriend and felt very alone when he was remanded in custody."
Price was arrested at her home address on June 7, last year.
"She lied in interview and tried to shift the blame onto Woolcock," said Mr. Munday. "It could well have caused a miscarriage of justice."
Woolcock, who has never served a prison sentence before, is one of eight children and grew up in the West Country care system, where she met Price.
She had plans to “turn her life around” and begin a college course to become a barber.
Woolcock’s lawyer Alex Rynn requested his client have the benefit of a Probation Service pre-sentence report, but this was rejected by Judge Jonathan Mann QC, who announced there was no alternative sentence to immediate imprisonment.
“She finds herself here as a result of misplaced loyalty,” said Mr. Rynn. “Both defendants were in care and school together.
“She was drinking too much and taking too many drugs. She left her own fingerprint on the letter, this was not a sophisticated offence.
“She felt an enormous amount of guilt having to say no.”
Judge Mann said: “There is a mechanism to investigate those who are victims to protect those genuinely trafficked from being prosecuted.
“It is sad that people who are not victims of modern-day slavery use this mechanism to get out of taking responsibility for what they have done and that’s what happened in this case.
“The prison received a letter that reinforced his defence and the mechanism concluded that he was a victim of modern slavery, based in part to that letter.
“The referral scheme was attacked by the unscrupulous, who abused that mechanism,” added the judge. “However, the CPS were unwilling to accept that ruling.
“The consequences were that a guilty drug dealer would have got away with it and this was a very serious attempt to pervert the course of justice.
“Such a serious attempt to pervert the course of justice, even an extremely fumbled one, cannot be anything other than a custodial sentence.”
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