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Crime Pembrokeshire West Wales

Jail for Cardigan drug dealer who defecated heroin inside police van

A self-confessed drug addict has been found guilty of hiding heroin in his rectum with the intention of supplying it to others.

The unanimous verdict against Daniel Meyler, 42, was delivered this afternoon (Friday) following a three-day trial at Swansea Crown Court.

Meyler, who currently works as a self-employed builder in Cardigan, was arrested in October 2021 after police had spent several months tracking his silver Renault Laguna on their ANPR system (automatic number plate recognition) .

Officers had observed it travel across county lines from Cardigan to Newport, Gwent, on ten separate occasions between August 10 and October 16, 2021.

Police eventually stopped his vehicle on October 16, 2021 as it travelled westwards near Pont Abraham service station in Cross Hands.

Suspecting that he had concealed drugs in his rectum, Meyler of Felinban, Cardigan, was taken to Glangwili Hospital where he refused medical treatment from hospital staff as well as a scan.

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He was subsequently taken to Ammanford police station but, because the station was particularly busy, had to wait outside in the police van. 

 During the wait Meyler defecated three small packets which were found to contain a total of 11.7 grams of the Class A drug heroin,  which had a lower purity grade of between 20 to 40%.

However Meyler claimed he had bought the heroin for his own personal use as a result of his addiction.

“All I cared about was making sure I had enough heroin to get me to work,” he told the court when he gave evidence earlier this week. 

 “I’ve been using heroin since I was 14.  I’m simply a heroin addict who was trying to get off the wagon.”

Meyler said that at the time of the offence he was working as a carpenter in several locations in England including Hereford, the West Midlands and London, when he was at the height of his addiction.

He claimed that he had been clean of the drug for five years, during which time he had been prescribed Subutex which helped him deal with his heroin withdrawal.  But when he was working away, his prescription ran out.

Meyler claimed that the nurse who he had spoken to was unable to issue a new prescription as she hadn’t completed her training..

“And so I started injecting heroin because this was what I knew,” he said.

 “Within two weeks I was taking more and more, because without it I was depressed and suicidal.  I took it so that I could work and provide for my children.”

But Crown counsel Georgia Jones, KC, questioned why, if this was the case, Meyler had refused hospital treatment when taken by police officers to Glangwili.

“The hospital was full of nurses, but instead of asking them for help and explaining why you had hidden your heroin, you refused medical attention,” she said.

The Crown said that the sole reason Meyler had made his repeated trips to Newport , Gwent, was to purchase heroin at a wholesale price which he would then sell on in Cardigan for a substantial profit.

  Meyler confirmed that the amount he had paid for the heroin which he subsequently defecated in the police van was approximately £300. 

 This, said the Crown, would have doubled or possibly even tripled in price once it was taken away from the larger city and sold in a more rural region, such as Cardigan in West Wales. 

“These figures just don’t add up,” she said.

  “He was purchasing drugs from Newport at a cheaper price and taking them back to sell them at higher prices because he knew a lot about street dealers.  He’s a heroin addict with an entrenched addiction to a highly addictive drug that he couldn’t afford to pay for himself.  So he’d buy, take off what he wanted, sell, and then buy some more.”

At an earlier Crown Court hearing Meyer had admitted possessing cannabis with intent to supply.

Following the jury’s unanimous verdict, the defence counsel, Ashanti-Jade Walton,KC, requested an adjournment for a pre-sentence report.

She informed the judge that Meyler is the father to six children, four of whom are his own. He has caring responsibility for these four, the youngest child being three years old.

“The drug has stolen many years of his life,” commented Ms Walton.

“And he’s going to miss out on significant milestones of his children’s lives now that he won’t be a part of them.”

Meyler has 26 previous convictions, eight of which are drugs related.  The most recent conviction was in February, 2023, for the possession of cannabis.

For the two charges of supplying heroin and cannabis, Daniel Meyler was sentenced to four years and six months in custody. He will serve half of this sentence in prison while the remainder will be served on licence.

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