A West Midlands teen caught dealing drugs outside an Oxford McDonald’s when he was just 15 fell into the trade after his father suffered a life-changing illness.
Duran Watson’s father was said to have returned home from work at Birmingham University feeling a ‘little unwell’ and by the end of the week was unable to recognise his own children.
The son’s education suffered, he dropped out of school and ended up hanging out with the wrong crowd in his native Wolverhampton, Oxford Crown Court heard.
READ MORE: Teen who had £500 of drugs in his sock GUILTY of dealing outside McDonald's
Watson, now 18, discovered that the cannabis he thought he was being given for free came at a price – and the only way he could repay his drugs debt was by working for his dealer.
His advocate, Adam Wieczerzak, told the court that he was threatened. On one occasion he was abducted, taken to a warehouse and threatened with a gun. It was made clear that unless he did as he was told there would be ‘consequences’ for his family.
In March 2019, he was caught dealing drugs in Staffordshire together with a man in his 50s.
Then, four months later, on July 14, 2019, he was with older boy Rayon Saunders when the pair were stopped by police in Cornmarket, Oxford.
Saunders, then 16, had £500-worth of crack cocaine and heroin in his sock, which he unsuccessfully sought to persuade jurors earlier this year that he’d found underneath a bench outside McDonald’s.
Watson had the mobile phone on which was found bulk advertising messages offering illegal drugs for sale.
On November 15 last year, police found a ‘Zombie knife’ with a 10 inch blade when they searched him in Wednesfield Road, Wolverhampton.
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The teenager, who already had three weapons offences on his rap sheet, claimed the knife belonged to a younger cousin and he’d confiscated it with the intention of handing it in. He then ‘panicked’ when he was confronted by the police officers.
The court heard he had spent two months in custody after the magistrates remanded him in February for breaching his bail.
Judge Maria Lamb imposed a two year suspended custodial sentence on Wednesday. As part of the suspended sentence, Watson must complete 40 rehabilitation activity requirement sessions, a further 15 sessions with the ‘community rehabilitative services’ and 120 hours of unpaid work.
She told the defendant: “You’ve had a taste of what it is like to be in prison and let me make it clear that this is an order which the court expects that you will comply with.
“It is a sentence. It is not something you chose which bits you fancy doing and which bits you don’t.
“Let me make it very clear if you don’t do this order you will find yourself back in front of a court and it is likely the court will take the view that order can no longer stand and you will go back into custody.”
Watson, of Elias Mattu Avenue, Wolverhampton, pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to being concerned in an offer to supply class A drugs and possession of an offensive weapon.
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