Two men jailed for selling drugs at Northamptonshire music festival

Rafiq Ffinch-Shah, 19 and from Hackney in London, and Gabriel Mador, 20 and from Highbury in London, both admitted various drug related charges and were sentenced to 30 months detention in a Young Offenders Institute each at Northampton Crown Court on Monday. They will serve half their sentence in jail before being released under supervision.

The two friends were stopped as they left the Shambala festival at Kelmarsh Hall on August 25 last year, and their bags searched by security staff who found electronic scales and bags of drugs, and then called the police.

The court was told Ffinch-Shah was found to have a phone with messages from someone ordering MDMA. The electronic scales in his bag had traces of MDMA on them as well as THC, the active compound in cannabis. He was also found with three bags of cannabis and £665 in cash.

Mador was found to have another set of electronic scales with traces on MDMA on them. He also had a quantity of MDMA worth around £1,420 on him, £540 in cash, and three bags of cannabis which he said was for personal use.

Recorder Kevin Hegarty said: “You had gone there, I am quite satisfied, to sell drugs and that’s what you did.

“Members of your family knew nothing about it until they heard about your arrest online or through other means, and they were shocked to the core.

“As they sat down to write the references I have read, they were in a position that no parent wants to be in. You put them in that position.”

He said that sentencing guidelines pointed to a ‘substantial custodial sentence’ saying: “You each played a significant role albeit in a relatively small operation.” However he added the sentence would be at the lowest level he could possibly justify.