SENTENCING STATEMENTS

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HMA v Garry Jordan and Steven McCallum

Oct 6, 2022

At the High Court in Edinburgh today Lord Arthurson imposed sentences of 5 years and 8 months imprisonment on Garry Jordan and 4 years imprisonment on Steven McCallum, after they both pled guilty to being concerned in the supply of a Class A drug.

On sentencing Lord Arthurson made the following statement in court:

"Garry Jordan and Steven McCallum, at Glasgow High Court on 18 August 2022, on the first day of the float period of a dedicated floating trial diet, each of you pled guilty to a single charge of being concerned in the supply of the class A controlled drug cocaine.

Mr Jordan, the period of your involvement was from 27 March to 29 May 2020. The offence in your case was aggravated by a connection with serious organised crime and was committed while you were on a recent sheriff court bail order. You were the driver of a vehicle stopped by police on the A95 public road at its junction with the B9153 road just north of Aviemore. Officers found in the vehicle approximately 3 kilos of cocaine with a maximum potential realisable value of £889,950.

You had utilised the EncroChat platform in respect of your involvement in the supply of cocaine over the period 27 March to 7 May 2020. The agreed narrative states that you had a logistics role at a mid level in the hierarchy of an organised crime group, albeit that you dispute that through your senior counsel. Mr McCallum, you were the front seat passenger in the vehicle and the period of your own involvement in this crime has been restricted to a single day, namely 29 May 2020.

Mr Jordan you have a short record of minor offending at summary level. Mr McCallum your own record is more extensive and comprises 16 groups of previous convictions, one in 2013 at sheriff and jury level.

Criminal justice social work reports are now available in respect of each of you. You are both family men with children. You Mr Jordan have been assessed as presenting a moderate level of risk and you Mr McCallum as presenting a medium risk. I have listened with care to the submissions advanced in mitigation on your behalf this morning by your respective counsel and propose to take all of that material into account in the sentencing exercise to be undertaken by the court in this case. Mr Jordan, your senior counsel on your behalf has submitted that your role was as a cog in a machine, but was primarily one of transportation, your involvement arising due to your own drug debt in the context of drug use by you.

As a result of the folly of your decision you would miss the formative years of your newly born child’s life. Mr McCallum, your counsel submitted that you were a single occasion single day courier, who committed this crime for a one-off payment and with no real understanding of the value of the drugs being transported. You too will be separated from your family and child, and you have already experienced that difficulty during your remand.

On any view the only appropriate disposal for each of you in a case of this nature requires to be a custodial one. Having regard to the quantity and maximum potential realisable value of the class A controlled drug which you were trafficking, you will well appreciate that these custodial sentences must be of a substantial length.

Mr Jordan, having regard to your greater involvement in terms of the period libelled, your EncroChat activity and your position in the hierarchy of an organised crime group, as reflected in the serious organised crime aggravation, you will serve a sentence of 5 years and 8 months imprisonment, discounted from a period of 7 years and 6 months due to the earlier offer by you of a plea in the terms now accepted at a preliminary hearing in this case. I attribute 9 months of this sentence to the section 29 organised serious crime aggravation and 3 months to the libelled bail aggravation.

Mr McCallum you will serve a sentence of 4 years imprisonment, discounted from a period of 5 years. The plea now accepted in your case was first offered by you after the preliminary hearing but well in advance of the trial diet.

These sentences will each be backdated to 18 August 2022, being the date of your respective convictions and remands in this case."

6 October 2022