Dealer had £100k of cocaine

A FORMER security guard caught with more than £100,000 of cocaine in his flat has been jailed for nearly five years.

William Reape claimed he was only storing the drug for someone else, and was being “paid in cocaine” to satisfy his own addiction. The 49-year-old had previously been jailed twice for drug trafficking offences before being sent to prison again yesterday at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Police raided his home in Viewcraig Street, Dumbiedykes, in February after officers were tipped off.

After officers arrived at his home with a search warrant, Reape admitted that there were drugs in a sports bag in his living room and more stashed on top of a kitchen cupboard.

Advocate Depute Andrew Brown QC told the court that detectives found other items in the property.

Mr Brown added: “Gloves and three sets of scales were also found in the flat, as well as £400 in cash and two mobile phones.”

Cocaine mixed with the Class C drug ketamine was recovered inside a Poundland bag in the kitchen. The white powder had been wrapped in plastic film and the street value of the drugs was estimated at up to £23,320.

An Adidas bag in the living room was found to contain 1.97kg of cocaine packaged in four separate bags. Police experts put the street value of the drugs at up to £78,800, bringing the total haul recovered from Reape’s home to around £100,000.

Unemployed Reape was taken to St Leonard’s police station following the raid, and later gave detectives a “no comment” interview.

Mr Brown added that tests had shown the purity level of the recovered cocaine was just two per cent.

Solicitor advocate Stuart Carson, defending, told the court that Reape had problems with drug addiction for “a number of years”, and in the last two years he had been using cocaine.

Mr Carson said: “The cocaine had been given to him. He had been asked to store this and it was due to be collected. He was being paid in cocaine.

“He told the police where the drugs were, and he’s tried to have this matter dealt with as promptly as possible.”

Mr Carson added that his client had been seeking drug counselling while remanded in prison. Reape pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cocaine before judge Lord Uist.

The court heard that Reape was jailed for 18 months for drug dealing in March 2001. He received a two-year sentence in January 2008 for another drug dealing offence involving cannabis resin.

Lord Uist said that the presence of three sets of scales and two phones “indicated significant drug dealing activity”.

He added that Reape’s two previous drug dealing convictions were a “serious aggravating factor” in determining his sentence.

Lord Uist jailed Reape for four years and eight months.