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Bungling Fraserburgh dealer’s ordered to serve out sentence in jail

James O'Keefe, 23, had originally avoided prison but will now spend six months behind bars after failing to complete unpaid work.

Peterhead Sheriff Court. Image: DC Thomson
Peterhead Sheriff Court. Image: DC Thomson

A Liverpool drug dealer who accidentally left £17,000 of crack cocaine and heroin on a Fraserburgh bus has been sent to prison after being unable to complete his unpaid work.

James O’Keefe, 23, was caught alongside another man in 2022 after the drugs they intended to sell were left behind and found by a bus driver.

Police later valued the haul at £17,160 with just over 100g of heroin valued at £2,400 and 147g of crack cocaine valued at £14,760.

Unable to complete original order

Both men were handed alternatives to time behind bars when they appeared at Peterhead Sheriff Court for the first time in 2023.

On that occasion, O’Keefe was handed an 18-month supervision order, 175 hours of unpaid work and 30 rehabilitation requirement days.

But at the same court this week, his defence agent Leonard Burkinshaw said O’Keefe was now no longer able to comply with the orders.

“We are where we are,” he told Sheriff Craig Findlater.

“He’s not going to be able to do this order at all.”

Mr Burkinshaw explained O’Keefe, whose address was given as Colby Close in Liverpool, was serving a 10-and-a-half-year custodial sentence in England for similar matters.

Threats to dealer

Sheriff Findlater said the court was limited in what it could now do and sentenced O’Keefe to six months imprisonment, which will be served consecutively to his English prison time.

When this was relayed to him in the dock, O’Keefe replied: “Uh huh, nice one.”

The court had previously heard O’Keefe had turned to dealing drugs as a way to pay off debts he owned to another dealer and had gone to Fraserburgh with no money or overnight bags.

Mr Burkinshaw told the court how O’Keefe’s family home had been the target of a ramraid and that he had also been threatened with violence if he did not agree to transport the drugs.