Kettering Harlequin pub landlord sold cocaine to customers to pay off debts
The landlord of a doomed Kettering pub turned his hand to drug dealing to pay off debts caused by his massive cocaine habit.
Mark Roberts had a £1,200 weekly cocaine habit, had taken money out of the pub and had racked up big drug debts of £30,000.
So he decided to begin dealing to his customers.
But in April 2022 police raided the building, where he was living in a flat above the pub, and arrested Roberts.
In his living quarters they found tick lists detailing the money owed to him by customers as well as £1,505 in cash, a number of mobile phones and 28 grammes of cocaine with a street value of £2,240.
The court was told that the 44-year-old had a long list of 47 previous convictions.
His barrister, Will Forber-Heyward, said Roberts, who was wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt in the dock, had only dealt to a ‘small, localised group’ of customers.
He added that his client had faced a long wait for the case to come to court and that, in those intervening months, he had turned around his life.
"He has completed two diplomas with the Open University which led to him being able to gain employment with the Hope Centre which helps homeless people and long-term drug users,” he said.
Roberts, of Railway View, Kettering, had to leave his paid role at the Hope Centre after he was charged in December 2023 and now volunteers there.
Mr Forber-Heyward said Roberts has significant mental health issues and has made 73 attempts on his own life this year.
"He’s had the proceedings and the inevitable sentence hanging over his head,” he said.
"But he’s completed a masters degree and has been able to use his arrest as a fulcrum and he’s levered himself in the right direction.”
Addressing Roberts, who admitted one count of possession of cocaine with intent to supply, Recorder Sunil Khanna said that he still owed £10,000 to dealers.
"You supplied to customers for a six month period,” he said.
"There must be a custodial so those who deal Class A drugs know they will be sent to prison.”
He was given a 27 month prison term.
- The Harlequin in Stamford Road has since closed and is set to become a convenience store.