A TAMWORTH man who boasted he "supplied the town" is staring down the barrel of life behind bars for dealing more than 1000 ecstasy pills in and out of the Imperial Hotel.
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Corey Cutmore will learn his fate today in Tamworth District Court as he is sentenced for supplying a large commercial quantity of MDMA - an offence that carries a maximum of life imprisonment.
Cutmore has admitted to supplying 1.45kg of cannabis leaf between August and December "to at least 50 different people"; and in the similar time period supplied 1911 MDMA pills and caps "to at least 65 people", the Crown told the court.
"At one point he bragged at one stage that he supplied the whole town," Crown prosecutor Brian Costello said.
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The Crown argued he supplied more than half-a-kilogram of MDMA in "repetitive and almost daily transactions approaching four months" and "until the point he was detected and stopped" in December last year.
"He sent people into the Imperial Hotel to sell drugs within the Imperial Hotel, seemingly to anyone who was willing to purchase them," Mr Costello told the court.
Cutmore, who is being held in Long Bay Hospital, sat silently in court for his hearing, flanked by two family members in court. His barrister Ertunc Ozen SC said his client was "involved in smallish quantities over and over again" that "add up to a large quantity, a very large quantity".
He said his client's parents divorced and the loss of an authority figure in his late-teens had triggered a chain of events that led him to self-medicate with cannabis.
He argued "only NSW and Queensland are dragging the ball on this" and "it just needs to be decriminalised".
Mr Ozen said it was "depressingly common to find young persons starting drugs early" and "turn[ing] to drugs as a form of self medication".
He said Cutmore had held jobs at McDonald's, as a chicken catcher and a courier before he had to stop because of an injury.
"He's out of work, he's rudderless ... he wracks up the debt," Mr Ozen said.
"Victim becomes offender, again all too common."
Despite a specialist medical report tendered in court in defence, Mr Costello said Cutmore's mental health was "clearly exacerbated by his own decision ... his decision to use illicit drugs".
Mr Costello said Cutmore "did embrace drug dealing as a career choice".
"He went about with it regularity, and repetition, and a high degree of organisation," he told the court.
"To be a principle in his own drug supply enterprise."
Mr Ozen argued Cutmore was "not living the life" as a drug dealer; "there are no signs of luxurious living, obvious wealth".
He should be swimming in cash but he isn't ... he was himself a victim of drug addiction.
- Barrister Ertunc Ozen SC
"He should be swimming in cash but he isn't," he said.
"He was himself a victim of drug addiction.
"Now that he's in jail, he's seeing what drugs can do to our community."
Strike Force Heyward - an Oxley police operation that targeted drug supply in the Imperial Hotel and in Tamworth - had spanned different towns and caught "a number of different people", the court was told.
The court heard Cutmore had a minor criminal history, but not for drug offending; was on a community corrections order at the time; it was his first time in custody and he needed ongoing help to stay off the drugs.
"When he's had some structure in his life, he's off the drugs," Mr Ozen submitted.
"Most of his deals are people he knows, his friends."
He said Cutmore sourced drugs from a number of upper line suppliers and "he brought drugs into the Tamworth community, and distributed them throughout the Tamworth community".
The court heard Cutmore is entitled to a 25 per cent discount for his early guilty pleas. Offences of supplying a small amount of cocaine; along with supplying a juvenile MDMA; and facilitating a juvenile into a drug enterprise will be taken into account in sentencing.
He remains bail refused.