A LANDSCAPE gardener was caught taking cocaine with five friends in a van in a layby.
Rhys Stuart Jennings, 21, of Bennetts Lane, Higher Kinnerton, pleaded guilty before Wrexham magistrates to possessing the class A drug.
Matthew Ellis, prosecuting, said police spotted a transit van parked in a layby on the A451 Mold Road, near Wrexham, with a rear light out in the early hours of September 23. A check revealed the vehicle had no MOT and when it drove off police followed and stopped the van.
The driver failed a road-side breath test and was found to have a wrap of cocaine on him.
There were five more people in the van. Jennings was in the back with four wraps of cocaine which he volunteered were his, Mr Ellis said. Two more wraps were found on his person.
In interview he told police he and some friends had arranged to go out and they had given him money up-front to get the drugs.
He and five others then went for a drive in the van and had stopped in the layby to take the cocaine.
Altogether there was 5.5g of the drug in the wraps, which Mr Ellis described as “very low level”.
Representing himself, Jennings said he did not feel he had a problem with drugs, but he did take them recreationally, perhaps twice a month.
A probation report said Jennings had been naive and got involved with a peer group who were using cocaine on a regular basis.
Spending 12 hours in a police station had had a “sobering effect” on him, the court was told.
Magistrates fined Jennings £155, and ordered him to pay £85 and a £15 victim surcharge.