A south Essex drug dealer has been told to consider himself “fortunate” after striking a plea bargain which allowed him to walk free on a suspended sentence.
Paul Leaper – already a convicted drug dealer in Spain – was caught red-handed in Brentwood last spring with cocaine, MDMA and ketamine.
He was initially charged with three offences of supplying Class A and B drugs, but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) agreed to accept pleas to lesser offences on two counts.
“I have serious reservations about all of this,” Recorder Ben Irwin told Basildon Crown Court on Friday (April 24).
“This was an individual who had a previous conviction for drug offending, who was driving around with a load of drugs in his car, and who sold someone drugs.”
Leaper, 47, now of The Street in Canterbury, was spotted by CCTV operators conducting a drug deal on May 19 2025.
A woman is recorded in the footage waiting near a loading bay in William Hunter Way, said prosecutor Philippa Page.
When Leaper pulls up in a black Peugeot, she gets in and he “can be seen handing over the drugs to his passenger in exchange for cash."
CCTV operators called Essex Police, which sent two officers to pull the car over as it headed towards Ongar.
Leaper was arrested. Inside the vehicle, police found more than 15 vials of cocaine, 12 deal bags of ketamine, over 5 grams of MDMA and £435 in cash.
He was charged with supplying all three drugs, but Recorder Irwin said he had “negotiated very favourable pleas”, whereby he admitted supplying cocaine but simply possessing ketamine and MDMA.
His sentencing hearing on Friday was told that in 2020 he was convicted in Spain of being concerned in the supply of drugs, for which he received a suspended sentence and a €3,500 fine.
But Mrs Page said that whilst the CPS had tried to find out further details of that Spanish conviction, no information had come back.
Recorder Irwin said Leaper should consider himself “fortunate” to have struck the plea deal which, combined with his early guilty plea, meant he would receive “a pretty lenient sentence”.
The facts of the case painted “a pretty clear picture to me, even if it wasn’t a pretty clear picture to the CPS,” he added.
He sentenced Leaper to a two-year suspended sentence, ordering him to complete 200 hours of unpaid work and up to 25 days of rehabilitation activities.
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