Case Study: R v Ryland Locke
Mr Ryland Locke (aged 21) has been charged with five offences of supplying Class B drugs.
Police officers had intelligence that Mr Locke was one of the main operators in delivering drugs to customers in the South London area. In particular, the drug commonly known as ‘meow meow’ (mephedrone) was on the rise and resulted in 5 fatalities over the past year.
Local police officers received a record number of complaints from local residents and members of the community about young people being ‘high’ on drugs and acting in an anti-social manner on the weekends.
There had been difficulties in developing this intelligence, and therefore no arrests had been made.
Mr Locke was not otherwise known to the police and had no previous convictions.
The focal point for the trade of the Class B drugs seemed to be a local community social club.
Police officers obtained an authorisation for an undercover operation. The operation was supervised and recorded.
An undercover police officer known as ‘Lex’, approached Mr Locke in this local community social club, after being there a few times. On two separate occasions Lex asked Mr Locke if he could, “sort him out some ‘meow meow’ ”. Mr Locke initially declined, stating that he “was not involved in that sort of thing”.
Lex then approached Mr Locke for a third time, and asked him whether he knew anyone that could sort him out some ‘meow meow’. On that occasion, Mr Locke said that he could sort it for him but does not deal at the social club, and that he would have to go to another meeting point to collect what he wanted. They exchanged numbers and the next day, at the given time and location, Mr Locke supplied Lex with 5 grams of ‘meow meow’. This transaction was the subject of count 1 of the indictment.
This happened on four more occasions over a period of three weeks; each time, Mr Locke supplied Lex with 5 grams of ‘meow meow’, in exchange for £60 per 5 grams; these transactions represented counts 2 – 5 of the indictment.
The prosecution seeks to adduce the above evidence at trial.
The defence, on behalf of Mr Locke, has argued that this was entrapment, and that the court should stay the proceedings as an abuse of the process of the court.
The skeleton argument will be assessed by reference to the following criteria:
- Identifying the legal issues in the set case study (below).
- Defining and setting out the law clearly and concisely.
- Applying the relevant law (including, case law) to the factual situation.
- Using grammatically correct English.
- Structuring and presenting the skeleton argument appropriately.
- Referencing your skeleton argument appropriately.