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fight4rights

Police Officer Denies Cannabis Use
Staff Reporter l Herald Express l 12/22/05

An award-winning Torbay police constable who was allegedly caught with cannabis in her flat emphatically denied she had taken it from a prisoner and kept it for her own use.

Sharon Snelling, 27, said she had forgotten about having the cannabis for seven months after putting it in a drawer in her kitchen where it was found by police in a raid. Snelling's Paignton flat was searched after she allegedly told police colleagues at a barbecue the night before that she "had some herbal".

Snelling said she took the cannabis from a criminal she knew after arresting him believing he was wanted on warrant. She said she decided not to charge him with having the cannabis because he was already going straight back to prison.

She told the jury she was planning to sign it on a register at the police station which would have led to its disposal.

She said not mentioning to the custody sergeant that she had found the cannabis was a deliberate decision.

Otherwise it would have led to masses of paperwork and the exercise would have taken about seven hours. So she used her discretion and decided to dispose of it through police procedures.

But it was a few days later when she was on a day off that she found it in the unsealed evidence bag and pushed it into a kitchen drawer.

She then forgot about it and the bag got pushed to the back of the drawer where it was found when the officers searched her flat.

Snelling said she did not smoke and when asked by her counsel Andrew Oldland if she smoked cannabis she replied: "I am definitely not a smoker of cannabis."

The jury heard on the night of the barbecue a tobacco tin was found in another drawer in the kitchen and that had contained some cannabis.

Snelling said the tin belonged to a former boy friend and she had not known what was in it. When she found out about it at the party, she took it out and threw it down the garden.

The defendant said she got very drunk at the party and could not remember everything.

She denied saying anything about "herbal". "Herbal is not a phrase I would use in relation to cannabis," she said.

She did not remember saying anything about cannabis at the barbecue but she had heard that some people had left because something had been said about cannabis.

She was sick and had to be put to bed before the barbecue was over. Then at 3.15am, the police raid took place.

"I was still under the influence, confused and disorientated," said Snelling.

She agreed she had told one of the searching officers: "I put it there. I brought it home because I was on a drugs course then I found it in my combats." But she said that was not correct.

"It was 3.15am in the morning when I was dragged out of bed. There were nine police officers and a dog in my flat. They refused to let me get dressed and I said it because I wanted them to go."

Cross examined by Rupert Lowe for the Crown, Snelling denied turning to cannabis to relieve pressure at work and wanting to keep the cannabis for herself.

Snelling had given up a place at university to join the force. She was a traffic warden and then a jailor at Torquay custody centre before joining the force proper in 2000.

Snelling said she won the Devon and Cornwall police probationer of the year in 2002.

In 2004, morale at Paignton was very low because they did not have the staff to do the job properly.

"We did not have enough people on the ground to do the job," she said.

She was an acting sergeant even though she had not done part one of the sergeant's exam. Since the cannabis find in September 2004 she had been suspended.

Snelling, of Wheatlands Road, Paignton, denies possessing the cannabis and the trial continues.

__________________
"Those who do no harm to others should not be harmed by others..." Ethan Nadelmann
"Revolution is not a right, it is an obligation." John Locke
"Do SOMETHING besides argue emotions against the law, because it simply isn't a rational way to affect any type of change whatsoever. No offense intended, but your opinion on things is a moot point unless you take actions to change the law, rather than ramble about how unfair or injust it is." troublemaker_42
"'Just say no' to drugs, except those marketed by big pharmaceutical companies." Ignorant Politicians

 

bassman5066

from what i can read here, she seems to have been lieing about not using cannabis. if i was in her position, and i wasn't using it and was telling the truth, i would tell them flat out, to drug test me. if she was keeping it for herself to releive stress or whatever, it isn't exactly a bad thing. cop or not, it sucks to see another person prosecuted for just smoking a little weed.

TheNewGuy

She took (stole) it from someone else who possessed it. Its ok for cops to take your weed just so they can smoke it themselves now?

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"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

nacrypt

While I do believe that police officers use marijuana at a lower rate than the general population there still has to be a ton of police officers who do use marijuana, which is a pretty hypocritical thing to do in their position.

Here are some very conservative estimates:

General population: (5% usage rate) x 295,734,134 = 14,786,706

Sworn police population: (1% usage rate) x 675,734 = 6,757

The general population figure is from the CIA website, the sworn police figure is from the FBI website. The usage rates are my own personal estimates and are very conservative. This means the real numbers are probably much higher. Either way, that is a lot of hypocritical police officers and a damn lot of American citizens that just want to get high!

fight4rights

I'm not sure that a pot smoking police officers are hypocritical. Perhaps they became a police officer in order to serve and protect. A DEA agent who thinks drugs should be legalized would seem more hypocritical to me.

I've heard quite a few stories in which officers let pot smokers go. If I were a police officer, (I would still be smoking marijuana) I would probably let a bunch of minor offenders off the hook. Would that be hypocritical?

 

urania3

Hypocritical? No. Unethical? Yes.

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Why is it that we cannot face the simple truth? Religion is at best unsubstantiated superstition. (Massimo Pigliucci)

Buzzby

Chain stores send in "secret shoppers" to determine how their employees are doing in dealing with the public. I wonder if police departments set up fake offenders for the same purpose? I know that I wouldn't trust that my employees are doing their jobs based on faith alone.

Niteshift? Phuzz01?

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killer12382

Have they done a drug test on her? Checking her hair would be the best way to determine long term cannabis use. It would go a long way to proving her story.

StewScum

whats really messed up, is that it was the officers friends that turned her in after getting wasted at their house. I suppose that goes to show 1, what kind of cop friends she had, and 2, cops are no better than the general population who turn to chemical vices sometimes.

I'm not at all mad at the cop for smoking, in my opinion, its not unethical if the actual law is unethical, and the cop did the guy a favor taking it off of him when he was going to jail, keeps the charges from stacking up. According to the article she was a decent cop, which may or may not have smoked pot, and i feel bad for her.

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Life is like a pot of stew, if you don't stir it up every once and a while, all the scum rises to the top -Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins.

JASPER1

I have just seen some of the comments about my trial and I just wanted to say that I offered to have my blood or hair tested to show that I don't smoke cannabis but my offer was refused. It would have cost nearly £1000 for me to have it done privately which I can't afford especially as I may lose my job over all this. I took the action I took to try and reduce not just the paperwork for myself but also the charges against the offender who was going back to prison anyway. I never had any intention of using that cannabis for my own use as I don't smoke!