A drug dealer who was chased and detained by a police dog has been sentenced to more than four years imprisonment.
On 16th June 2020, officers from Leicester Police Force were in the area of Belgrave Gate, Leicester, when they saw Keenan Grace, a 23- year- old male who they wanted to speak to in relation to other matters. Grace was the passenger in the back of a taxi.
As officers were planning to stop the vehicle, Grace left the vehicle and began running away from them.
Officers ran after Grace and during the chase, a knife fell from the his pocket. This was seized by police and later identified as a lock knife.
Grace continued to run and was instructed by police to stop or police dog Hope would be deployed. Despite this, Grace continued to run and PD Hope then detained him on Westbourne Street.
Grace suffered injuries following the involvement of PD Hope and was taken to hospital for treatment before later being discharged.
When Grace was searched, more than £800 was found on him. A single glove and a balaclava were also recovered.
A search was carried out where Grace had been running and another glove was found which matched the glove which Grace was found in possession of. This glove was matched to Grace and was found to contain cocaine, heroin and cannabis.
Investigative work was carried out on a phone belonging to Grace which recovered deleted messages and calls on the phone. This then led to a drug expert concluding that Grace was intending to supply drugs.
On Friday 22nd January at Leicester Crown Court, Grace was sentenced to a total of 42 months imprisonment after pleading guilty to possession of class A drugs (cocaine) with intent to supply, possession of class A drugs (heroin), possession of class B drugs (cannabis) and possession of a bladed article.
At the same hearing he was sentenced to eight months imprisonment to be served consecutively after pleading guilty to two counts of handling stolen goods in relation to offences committed in 2018.
The total sentence imposed was therefore 50 months imprisonment.
Detective Sergeant Jason Fell said:
“Grace tried to evade police after initially being stopped but after being pursued by officers on foot and with the assistance of PD Hope, he was detained.
“Investigative work led to him admitting responsibility for his crimes including the possession of class A drugs with intent to supply and being in possession of a knife.
“We urge anyone with any information on serious offending of this kind to make contact with us. We will take action on the information we receive to bring offenders to court.”
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Should have got 5 Years minimum for the knife ++ for the rest, all consecutive !
As long a PD Hope managed to get in a bite or two – who cares? Hopefully this idiot will have learnt one lesson at least!! Great work
If he served the full 50 months, this would be a halfway decent result. Actually, 50 months for drug dealing, handling stolen goods and carrying a blade is quite a modest sentence. Assuming this is a first conviction, which seems unlikely, he should have got 4 years for the knife, 2 years for each drug supply offence, 1 year for possession of Class A and another year for handling times two plus a year for the cannabis, making a total of 10 years. He would be 33 when released.
As it is, he will be out in a couple of years and will quite likely go straight back to drug dealing and other criminal activity. If he knew that the next time he was convicted he would serve 20 years minimum and more if the judge felt it appropriate, he might think about a career change.
If he did not, the minimum 40 year sentence on his subsequent conviction would certainly make him think again because he would be at least 93 when he was up for release.
Crime will never be conquered. New villains are born every year. However, applying the 80/20 rule, namely 80% of crime is committed by 20% of criminals, there is no reason to suppose that recorded and unrecorded crime would not drop by 70-80% within a few years.
When Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York, he employed Bill Bratton as his Chief of Police. Bratton drove down crime by 30% in 18 months. It really can be done.