Oxford student jailed for drug offences
BY A STAFF REPORTER

AN OXFORD University student has been jailed for two years for dealing in
drugs. Benjamin O'Brien, 19, was told by Judge Harold Wilson that those who
enjoyed the advantages and privileges of university life had to learn to
exercise responsibility as well.

Sentencing O'Brien at Oxford Crown Court, Judge Wilson said: "There is a
very serious drug problem in this city and you are part of that problem.
Despite all the publicity about drugs, and the deaths involved,
particularly with Ecstasy, you ignored all those warnings.

"You supplied friends with drugs and threatened them with death. It is not
melodrama, it is happening every day."

Judge Wilson continued: "You were equipped with advantages denied others
but advantages and privileges bring responsibilities too. The message must
clearly go out that those who peddle drugs in this city and are caught will
lose their liberty."

O'Brien, from Halifax, was a politics, philosophy and economics student at
Somerville College. He had finished in the top three in his firstyear exams.

He admitted six charges of possessing and supplying Ecstasy, supplying
cannabis and possession of cocaine and amphetamines. Police had raided his
college room in June and found 42 Ecstasy tablets hidden behind a poster
and other drugs.

Documents revealed that O'Brien had supplied 172 Ecstasy tablets and other
drugs worth ú1,500 to student friends since January.

Michael Trueman, for the defence, said that O'Brien's actions had brought
shame on his mother, a voluntary care worker, and his father, a brewery
director.

"He went from being a highly academic, responsible, hardworking sixth
former at Bradford Grammar School to a naive and foolish firstyear
university student supplying drugs because he thought people would think of
him as cool," Mr Trueman said.

"He was a fresher, a young intelligent man, clearly impressionable, and he
was drawn into the misuse of drugs."

Mr Trueman added that it not been a venture for profit. O'Brien insisted
that he had given up supplying drugs two weeks before his arrest, after
friends warned him of the risks involved.

Copyright 1997 The Times Newspapers Limited