A DEALER who pulled a gun on a Stratford drug-user to reinforce a demand that he pay off a debt he owed for heroin and crack cocaine has been jailed.
Drug dealer Kaysey Coleman and his driver Mateusz Kowalik had both pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.
Coleman, 24, of Salford Close, Coventry, who also pleaded guilty to possessing heroin and crack cocaine with intent to supply them, was jailed for a total of six years and two months.
Kowalik, 22, of Tulliver Street, Coventry, who admitted further charges of having a bladed article and possessing crack cocaine with intent, was jailed for three-and-a-half years.
Prosecutor Simon Hunka said earlier this year a Stratford drug-user had run up a debt of £130 to Coleman, who had been his dealer for about 12 months.
For security the user had given Coleman his girlfriend’s Halifax bank card – but on May 20 Coleman sent him a text, annoyed at how long it was taking for the debt to be paid off.
And at 11.30 that night Coleman and Kowalik turned up in outside the man’s Stratford home in Longfellow Road.
When he came out he was ordered to get in the car to speak to Coleman, who complained he had been given an incorrect pin number for the Halifax card.
Although the man gave him £50 which he hoped would appease the dealer, Coleman produced a handgun from under the seat and threatened him.
The following day there was a further text from Coleman about the debt, which had still not been settled, and he then turned up at the man’s home at shortly after midnight and began banging and kicking the front door.
The drug user was so scared he called the police, but Coleman had left by the time officers arrived.
After Coleman was arrested in Warwick later that day at around lunchtime, he was strip-searched, and the police recovered 78 wraps of crack cocaine, three wraps of cocaine, and 41 wraps of heroin from his boxer shorts.
Kowalik, who had no previous convictions, was arrested in Nuneaton the following day, and was found to have a ‘menacing-looking’ lock knife on him and 39 wraps of cocaine.
His home was then searched, and in a wardrobe officers found the handgun Coleman had brandished, which turned out to be a realistic-looking gas-powered BB gun, loaded and ready to fire.
Mr Hunka added at the time of the offences Coleman was subject to a two-year suspended prison sentence imposed at the crown court in January last year for possessing heroin and crack with intent.
Ian Windridge, for Coleman, made the point that the gun was an imitation firearm and had not been discharged.
James Doyle, for Kowalik, said he had fallen foul of the “temptation of easy money and the false glamour of being a drug dealer”.
Coleman was jailed for four years for the drug offences, with a consecutive 14-month term for the gun – on top of 12 months of his suspended sentence which he was also ordered to serve.
And Kowalik was given two-and-a-half years for the drugs, nine months for the gun and three months for the lock knife.
