London appeal court upholds jailing of Nigerian man for ‘slick’ cocaine trafficking operation

The appeal court in London, the United Kingdom, has upheld the conviction and jailing of a Nigerian man, Damilola Ogundeyin, for his involvement in a cocaine trafficking operation.

Mr Ogundeyin, 41, participated in a large-scale cocaine operation in the United Kingdom in 2022.

The man, with a history of a previous criminal conviction, was convicted of a cocaine crime in July last year. The Crown Court in Croydon, London, subsequently sentenced him last December.

Judge Elizabeth Lowe of the Crown Court sentenced Mr Ogundeyin to nine years in jail for transferring cocaine to another person in a “slick operation” that took place in July 2022.

Dissatisfied with the nine-year jail term sentence, Mr Ogundeyin filed an appeal before the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in London.

In June, the appeal court affirmed Mr Ogundeyin’s conviction and commuted his nine years jail time to seven years.

Offence

Mr Ogundeyin was caught participating in a cocaine operation in North-West London on 29 July 2022.

Prosecutors said he held three 1-kilogramme blocks of high-purity cocaine with a wholesale value of £90,000 and a street value of £300,000 at his home. It was alleged that he was expecting significant financial gain for doing so.

The prosecutors noted that Mr Ogundeyin, of Beaufort Park Estate in Colindale, North West London, played the role of a “middleman” in the operation – an associate delivered the cocaine to him and he transferred the cocaine to one Lyanne Kandler-Dick.

The drugs were seized from Ms Kandler-Dick’s car by the police less than 30 minutes after she left the address of Mr Ogundeyin on 29 July 2022. Ms Kandler-Dick has since pleaded guilty to the supply of Class A drugs found in her vehicle and to other drug-related offences. She was sentenced to six years and nine months’ imprisonment.

During the trial, the prosecution established no phone calls or messages between Ms Kandler-Dick and Mr Ogundeyin throughout the operation. The lack of direct communication between them, the prosecutor said, implied that a third party higher up the drug chain directed those storing and transporting the drugs, as well as co-ordinating where the supplier should meet and when.

The Crown Court agreed with the prosecutors on this submission, adding that the transfer of such a large quantity of drugs in the way described by the observing officers who had had Mr Ogundeyin’s house under surveillance was indicative of a “slick operation.”

Ms Lowe, the judge, maintained that Mr Ogundeyin must have acquired the drugs from a source close to the UK supplier because of how the drugs were packaged when he passed them on to Ms Kandler-Dick.

But Mr Ogundeyin argued that the package he gave to Ms Kandler-Dick was delivered to his home the previous day by an associate who had asked him to hand it over the following day. He said he was returning from Nigeria when the package was delivered to his London home. He also told the court that he was “merely a courier, keeper or storer” as he knew nothing of the contents or the drug supply operation.

The judge, however, rejected his submission, saying he was trusted with “large amounts of a valuable and risky commodity.”

Initial sentencing

Prosecutors established at trial that Mr Ogundeyin had a significant role as a middleman. They alleged that he held the drugs at his address and subsequently transferred them to Ms Kandler-Dick with the expectation of substantial financial gain for doing so.

The prosecution said this offence fell towards the top of the category 2 “significant role” range. This categorisation provided a starting point for eight years’ custody and a range of six and a half to ten years.

On his part, Mr Ogundeyin submitted that he fell into the “lesser role” category, where the starting point is five years’ custody, with a range of three and a half to seven years.

In sentencing him, the judge concluded that he was close to the source of supply, adding that it was evident from what was observed by the officers that he was trusted with large amounts of a valuable and risky commodity.

She rejected his submission that he was merely a courier, keeper or storer.

She dismissed another of the convict’s submissions that there was no proven financial gain.

The judge concluded that the volume of drugs involved placed the offence at the top of category 2. She also assessed the convict’s role as significant rather than the lesser role contended for by his counsel.

This categorisation allowed the judge to impose on him a sentence starting from eight years’ custody within and a range of six and a half to ten years.

She concluded that the offence was aggravated by the nature and fact of the applicant’s previous convictions.

She did not accept that a document called an ‘Admission and Contrition Statement’ amounted to genuine remorse.

Mr Ogundeyin had also submitted a letter from his nine-year-old son pleading for leniency.

However, the judge said it reflected poorly on the applicant and demonstrated his willingness to do anything to save his skin without considering the welfare of his child.

However, the judge considered the impact that the inevitable prison sentence would have on all three of the convict’s young children, as well as his sister and his mother, who was in poor health.

She arrived at a final sentence of nine years’ imprisonment.

Fresh sentence

Mr Ogundeyin lodged his appeal against the sentence four days late. Therefore, he had to apply for an extension of time.

Additionally, he submitted three grounds of appeal to challenge the sentence.

Firstly, he argued through his lawyer that the judge’s starting point was too high by placing his offence under the category 2 “significant role.”

Secondly, he argued that too much weight or emphasis was placed on his previous conviction.

Thirdly, he stressed that insufficient credit was given for Mr Ogundeyin’s mitigation.

Lord Justice Mark Warby led the three-member bench of the Court of Appeal, which had Mary Stacey and John Lodge as members.

Ms Stacey read the court’s judgement.

After reviewing the appeal, the court held that the case was arguable and, therefore, granted the appellant leave to prosecute the appeal.

Reviewing the substance of the appeal, the appeal court also commuted the sentence from nine years imprisonment to seven years.

The court noted that it was established during the trial that the appellant’s reward was more than limited, implying that his participation in the crime was of a “lesser role”.

The court also accepted the appellant’s lawyer that the volume and purity of the drugs supplied were not sufficient to safely infer an awareness and understanding of the scale of the operation.

Therefore, the court agreed that the judge should have placed the appellant’s offending into a category 2 “lesser role”, with the correspondingly lower starting point and range of allowable sentence.

However, the court also said the judge was right to place the offending on top of the range, considering the aggravating features, namely the quantity and purity of the drugs, the professionalism of the operation, and the lack of vulnerability or any sense of naivety or exploitation of the appellant himself.

“This was not, for example, a case of a drug user being involved to fund his own habit,” the court said. It said the mitigation was “very limited” and the judge was also entitled to be sceptical about the so-called ‘Admission and Contrition Statement’.

“She was entitled not to make any downward adjustment to the top of the range for the category 2 ‘lesser role’,” the appeal court ruled.

Therefore, the court partially granted Mr Ogundeyin’s appeal by commuting the sentence imposed by the lower court.

“Accordingly, we allow appeal to this extent. We quash the sentence of nine years imprisonment and substitute for it a sentence of seven years imprisonment,” the three-judge court of appeal said.

Past convictions

Mr Ogundeyin was convicted mainly of dishonesty, driving and being in possession of weapons.

In the case, Mr Ogundeyin was convicted of “false imprisonment, causing grievous bodily harm with intent and causing others to engage in sexual activity without their consent, according to the trial records relied on

This case happened in 2007 when Mr Ogundeyin was involved in a “kidnap and horrific torture and humiliation” of two men said to have owed a drug debt of £5,000.