CRACK DEALER WAS NOT ‘MR BIG.’

A crack-dealing dwarf dwarf has walked free because he would lose his specially
modified home if he was jailed.

Pint sized pusher Pele Watson, 40, was caught red-handed by an undercover officer who bought drugs from him outside an east London bookies.

The policeman, who called himself ‘Jazz’, spotted Watson standing outside Totesport on Bow Road, Mile End, and asked if he could buy some heroin.

He was about to leave after Watson, who is 3ft 9in, told him he was not a drug dealer.

But Watson’s friend Danny Grant, 44, then emerged from the shop and asked if Jazz ever smoked any ‘white’, meaning crack, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

The two men said they could supply him with the drug if he broke off a piece for them to use.

Watson asked for £20 and disappeared down a side street with the money, while Grant waited with ‘Jazz’ and even joked he was an undercover officer.

He added he was joking and was actually ‘the biggest smoker in the area.’

Later that day, the dwarf handed Jazz an 0.17g rock of crack outside his flat on Wellington Way, Tower Hamlets.

When the officer asked if he could buy any more drugs in future, Watson said they could meet up at the bookies because he was ‘always’ there.

Jeremy Rendle, defending Watson, said his client was an addict and hadn’t made any money from the offence.

He said: ‘He suffers from a condition he told me is called achondroplasia, but then in response to my blank look described as dwarfism.

‘He is diagnosed as suffering with paranoid schizophrenia and depression, for which he takes a cocktail of prescribed medications.

‘If he were given an immediate custodial sentence it’s likely he would lose his home, which is being refurbished in order to meet his physical needs.’

Passing sentence, Judge Sarah Paneth said she could have easily jailed Grant for three and a half years and Watson for two and a half.

Instead she gave Grant an 18-month supervision order with six months of drug rehabilitation and Watson a 12-month order with the same rehab requirement.

Judge Paneth said: ‘Clearly in both cases your offence is serious enough to warrant an immediate custodial sentence.

‘The selling of Class A drugs is regarded by the courts as one of the most serious offences and it’s only in exceptional circumstances that I have decided to impose a community order.

‘It’s clear that you have an addiction to crack cocaine. In your case, Watson, you told the officer you were not “working” and there was no pre-planning.’

Watson, of Tower Hamlets, and Grant, of Grays, Essex, both admitted conspiracy to supply crack.