Dawn Anne-Marie Ward must give up cannabis habit

Dawn Anne-Marie Ward, 27, was sentenced after pleading guilty in March to multiple drug trafficking charges.

Justice Robert Pearce imposed 21 months' jail which would not need to be served if she complied with the conditions of the drug treatment order which include refraining from any illicit drug use and committing no imprisonable offences.

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In a submission before sentencing defence counsel Evan Hughes said Ward had been attempting to wean herself off cannabis and had reduced her cannabis use to two grams a day.

"If I make this order she will have cease all use," Justice Pearce said.

He made the order after balancing imperatives such as general and personal deterrence and condemnation. He said that the community would benefit if she could rehabilitate.

"You should be left with no doubt that if you don't comply you will go to prison," he said.

At the end of the sentencing hearing Ms Ward said: "Thanks you so much Your Honour"

"It's over to you Ms Ward," Justice Pearce replied.

The court also heard that she was pregnant and needed to avoid stress.

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In March the court heard Ward was busted with ice worth up to $115,000 when she walked past a sniffer dog at the Launceston Airport.

She pleaded guilty to trafficking in ice and cannabis in Melbourne, Launceston and surrounding areas between November 17, 2019 and May 6, 2020.

She continued trafficking in the months after being charged and bailed.

Ward also pleaded guilty to trafficking in a controlled substance (MDMA known as ecstasy) in Newnham on July 28, 2020.

She was in possession of $4265 cash on October 1, 2020. She pleaded guilty to dealing with the proceeds of crime and the lesser charge of selling a controlled substance.

She also pleaded guilty to two offences under Commonwealth law in relation to flying under a false name and was sentenced to a months jail.

There was also a raft of offences including driving while disqualified that would normally be heard in the Launceston Magistrates Court.

The sniffer dog picked her out when she walked off an aeroplane into the Launceston Airport terminal on January 14, 2020.

A search found a small black bag.

"There's f---ing meth in there okay," Ms Ward said to police.

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The court heard Ward travelled to Melbourne earlier in the day under the name of Jessica Ward and picked up 111.4 grams of crystal methylamphetamine in a Melbourne suburb. A later search of her home found scales, notebooks, a Samsung tablet and snaplock bags of drugs.

She told police in an interview that she was in a really dangerous situation and had been sent to pick up the drugs by people in Launceston.

A mobile phone had 109 text messages indicating drug sales and a notebook contained a tick sheet [names of debtors] with 53 names dating back to December 2019.

On April 9, she was caught driving while disqualified and further evidence of drug selling was found on a mobile phone that was seized.

In May, a further raid of her home found evidence of drug selling from April 13 - five days after she was bailed on disqualified driving.

In July 2020, she was caught disqualified driving and a search found snaplock bags of MDMA, scales and $9915 in cash and two mobile phones. She was refused bail by a magistrate but achieved bail in the Supreme Court on August 26.

In October in George Street, Ward was again caught driving while disqualified and had $4265 in cash.

She provided a PIN code to mobile phones which established selling between September 1 and October 1-one week after being released from prison.

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Ward told police that once she started selling drugs it was not that easy to stop.

"They don't let you," she said in a police interview.

"When asked who she said 'the people who run the drug scene in Tasmania'."

Nearly ten thousand dollars was forfeited as unexplained wealth.

Prosecution said it was an aggravating factor that much of the trafficking occurred while she was on bail and while she had a suspended sentence.

She had spent time in prison and there were 31 days not attributed to any other sentence.

In sentencing Justice Pearce said Ward's background was one of family violence and drug abuse.

Her father [Gregory Harland-White] was a well-known criminal who died in an Indonesian jail last year.

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