Alarming spike in hospital admissions which led to a landmark conviction
THREE years ago police noticed more people ending up in hospital in Exeter after taking so-called "legal highs".
The alarming trend sparked an investigation that ended last week with the convictions of two shop owners Simon Tomlin and Paris Newton for intent to supply controlled drugs – the first time the industry has been brought to task on a commercial scale.
The pair were ordered by a judge to pay more than £210,000 in fines, costs and confiscation orders.
And the small team of officers that gathered the evidence to secure a conviction said they hope the landmark case will act as a warning to the legal industry – that it needs to take more control over what it sells.
Investigating officer Detective Constable Stu Peters said: "No police force in the country has taken it to this extent and there has been no investigation of this kind on a commercial scale. There has never been a series of shops taken to task because of the difficulty with the legislation.
"In addition to the hefty fines and court costs they have been ordered to pay, the re-sale value of what we have seized is just over £250,000. This will be destroyed."
And after the sentencing DC Peters reflected on what he described as the biggest and most complex case he had ever been involved in.
"Back in 2010 we were receiving reports of people getting ill on the back of legal highs that had been purchased from the Hush shop on Fore Street in Exeter," he said. "Sales continued so we decided to execute a misuse of drugs warrant in December 2010 at the Exeter store where a large quantity of powders and substances were seized – a total of 13 kilos."
The haul was sent off for analysis and results showed it contained controlled substances.
DC Peters continued: "On the back of this intelligence continued to flow and a further set of warrants were issued in March 2011 – that included the Hush shops in Exeter and Exmouth and two shops in Torquay as well as at the home addresses of the two defendants.
"Along with further large quantities of powers and capsules, in excess of £42,000 in cash was also seized and both men were arrested.
"Uniquely, as the goods were openly being sold in a shop, the issue of supply was clear from the outset. But the biggest challenge officers faced was establishing knowledge and involvement.
"They claimed they had bought them from suppliers in good faith believing them to be legal products.
"Then there was an issue over the purity of the substances as it was claimed it was trace quantities. But we managed to secure an internationally-renowned professor in London who carried out independent tests able to prove the purity was well beyond that of trace levels."
This month the case had been listed for a two-week trial but the duo ended up changing their plea to guilty.
"It has not been a straightforward case," DC Peters acknowledged. "There have been issues along the way. But the bottom line is drugs found at shops and homes of the defendants and tests showed they contained controlled substances.
"In light of the evidence we were able to gather, two defendants admitted intent to supply on the basis they were negligent and ought to have suspected they contained controlled drugs."
He praised the work of his small team including PC Scott Robertson and financial investigator Tony Reynolds, but acknowledged that they were always playing a "chasing game" with the industry.
"They have top end scientists working on their behalf to design products that escape the current legislation," he said. "The Government has to look at these for some time to see effects and scale to determine whether legislation is needed. It is a chasing game and we are chasing the industry. On occasions such as this we take a step or two forward and get them on the back foot. They are not regulated about what they sell and there is no legal requirement for them to test.
"Since this job they have been a bit more thorough. Negligence is not a good enough excuse and they need to take a more positive role in safeguarding the production on sale to the public. They can no longer blame their suppliers.
"It is satisfying to think this will make the legal high industry consider whether it should be doing more and questioning whether it is lawful. As this case is the first of its kind, word I am sure will get out among the legal high community and it will have nationwide implications.
"This is a massive hit for them but also shows the profitability of the industry.
"We will be keeping a close watch on their activities, which will be an ongoing process with more emphasis on intrusive monitoring. But a lot of the owners are happy to have us being involved where we can work with them.
"I am really proud of the result and it is certainly the biggest job I have been involved in."
PC Robertson said: "Hopefully this will impact nationally and make other shop owners and people selling them think twice about sitting back and doing nothing. They will know they have to take steps to make sure it is legal.
"From such small beginnings to see it come to such a positive conclusion is phenomenal."Shop owners convicted of intent to supply illegal substances
A JUDGE has imposed massive fines on two shopkeepers who had illegal drugs at their chain of shops which claimed to be dealing in legal highs.
Simon Tomlin and Paris Newton were ordered to pay more than £210,000 in fines, costs and confiscation orders after they admitted having banned substances at their shops.
The penalties imposed at Exeter Crown Court came at the end of a long legal battle which is seen by the police to be a key test case in their efforts to control the industry in designer drugs.
Tomlin and Newton were co-directors of one of the region's biggest legal high businesses and ran shops in Exeter, Exmouth, Torquay and Taunton.
They were found with recently banned chemicals worth up to £220,000 when they were raided in December 2010 but it has taken until now for them to admit their involvement.
Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, said the fines reflected the value of the illegal drugs and the huge profits which both men were making from the trade.
They were each taking salaries and profits of about £140,000 a year and the shops had a turnover of more than £1m a year.
The illegal drugs were almost six kilograms and 126 tablets of a mixture of two chemicals called BZP (benzopiperazine) and TFMPP (triflouromethypiperazine). When combined they make up a designer drug which has a number of street names.
They were selling with names like Benzo-Fury or Sidewinder but at the time it was also known as Rapture and was a widely used rave drug until it was banned in December 2009.
Tomlin runs the Hush shops in Fore Street, Exeter, The Strand in Exmouth, and Bridge Street, Taunton. Newton runs the Mushroom head shop in Torquay.
Tomlin, 30, of St David's Hill, Exeter, and Newton, 41, of Thurlow Road, Torquay, both admitted possession of BZP and TFMPP with intent to supply.
Newton also admitted possession of cannabis and a mixture of BZP and TFMPP at his home.
Tomlin was fined £72,000 and Newton £83,000 and they were each ordered to pay £25,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act and £3,500 costs. The total amount adds up to £212,000.
The judge told them: "You were the directors and controlling minds of a successful business selling legal highs. You were both running a very profitable business but had products for sale with a significant percentage of illegal substances. It was your responsibility to check what was in them."
He said they put staff and customers at risk of prosecution and users at risk of physical and psychological harm through mislabelling of the products, which were sold as plant food or research chemicals.
He said: "I very much doubt if your customers were gardeners or research chemists. This was a cynical and very transparent attempt to hide the fact there was something questionable about these products without saying so. Selling legal highs puts a very high duty on you to make sure that nothing illegal is for sale on the premises.
"In some respects this is even more serious than selling illegal drugs on the streets. If someone buys heroin, cocaine or cannabis they know what they are buying.
"If they go to a shop that purports to sell legal highs but the products are not labelled adequately, that is more culpable, if anything."
Jonathan Barnes, prosecuting, said the drugs mimicked the effects of ecstasy or amphetamines and were made illegal a year before the raid on the Hush shops.
The illegal drugs were found at the Exeter shop and Newton's home and their value was estimated at between £120,000 and £230,000.
Martin Meeke, QC, defending Tomlin, said he and Newton had bought what they believed to be legal substances but had been deceived by suppliers who were keen to get rid of their stocks after they were made illegal.
He said his client now checks the legality of his products by monitoring the Home Office website and submitting them for analysis to ensure their authenticity.
He also checked the age of customers.
Brendan Moorhouse, for Newton, said his client's position was no different from that of major supermarkets who were caught up in the horse meat scandal because he had not intended to break the law but been let down by his suppliers.
He said the pills seized at Newton's home had been stock he removed from his shop when the law changed but had not got round to throwing away.Distraught mum's plea for legal high legislation
A MOTHER from Exeter whose young daughter almost died because of her addiction to "legal highs" has led calls for a crackdown on the industry.
Following the convictions of shop owners Simon Tomlin and Paris Newton for intent to supply illegal substances at their shops, one city woman, who is not being named to avoid identifying her daughter, said she hoped it would build momentum for action to be taken.
Her daughter, who is under the age of 16, has been taking legal highs for more than a year and has ended up in hospital several times as a result.
On one occasion the family were told she was not expected to make it through the night.
She said: "My daughter is regularly taking legal highs that are bought for her by adults from the shop in Exeter.
"She said she is taking something legal and will not accept she has a problem.
"They have made her very ill. She has been in hospital four times after overdosing and she is addicted to them.
"They have almost killed my daughter. After the last one she admitted having hallucinations and that it frightened her, and she said she would never take it again. A week later she was back on it.
"We really need to raise the profile of this to other parents as kids think this is ok.
"The worst incident came when she had a fit after she had taken King B. Doctors thought she was not going to get through the night.
"I know they were prosecuted for intent to supply illegal substances but we need to look at the issue as a whole. The industry is bringing out new ones all the time to get around the legislation.
"We are distraught as parents. There is support for the young person if they admit they have a problem. The stumbling block here is they don't see that they have a problem.
"There needs to be Government legislation and they need to use this case to start clamping down. You only have to look at their website and I believe it is quite obvious what they are selling it for.
"It is so stressful and very upsetting and we really need to build some momentum on the back of this case.
"There should be something in place to support the families. Yet there is seemingly nothing we can do. We really don't know what to do. Our big fear is that she will overdose on this stuff. I also worry it is causing her brain damage.
"When we try to talk to her we are met with denial and anger. She doesn't see it as a problem and thinks we are overreacting.
"It is a really big problem – this stuff is awful and is a wide-spread problem. Things need to change. It may be legal but it really alters behaviour. She is out of it and off her head."
Simon Tomlin, owner of the Hush chain, was unavailable to comment this week. But he previously told the Echo the substances are sold as research chemicals.
He said a lot of customers are professionals who are looking for an alternative to illegal substances.
The Hush shops have a "no ID no service" policy, and Simon is voluntarily and regularly in touch with Trading Standards officials.
"What people do with them is up to them," he said. "We try to educate people and we operate a strict over-18s policy."
He agreed it is a concern that it is hard to know the effects of legal highs, but called for better regulation of drugs, such as the legalisation of MDMA and cannabis, which could reduce their demand.
