Drug-dealing semi-pro footballer loses appeal against jail term
A semi-professional footballer and youth coach has been told that his four-year jail term for dealing crack and heroin was not too long.
Shaquille Ologitere, 24, was caught by cops in a property in West Bromwich Road, Walsall, with drugs worth over £17,000, plus £6,700 in dirty cash.
Ologitere, from Walsall, was put behind bars at Wolverhampton Crown Court in March after he admitted possession of heroin and cocaine with intent to supply and having criminal property.
At London's Criminal Appeal Court, he asked judge Sir Alan Wilkie to cut his sentence, claiming he was treated too harshly.
His lawyers pointed out that he had been playing football for a semi-professional team and had shown a better side to his character by coaching two youth sides.
The judge, sitting with Lord Justice Irwin and Judge Gregory Dickinson QC, heard that when police raided the Walsall property in February they found Ologitere in an upstairs bedroom.
They also found 145g of crack cocaine, worth £13,600 on the streets, and 46g of heroin, worth £3,800, along with the drugs money.
Ologitere was out on licence at the time from an eight-year sentence for stabbing two teenagers at a birthday party.
Sir Alan told the court: "The sentence of four years was severe... it is said that the previous conviction for violence was not necessarily apposite in this case, as there were no weapons found on this occasion."
But he concluded: "The evidence tended to indicate somebody involved in street dealing in a serious way and making somewhat of a success of it.
"The judge was entitled to have regard to his previous serious offending as an aggravating factor, and the fact that he was on licence for a serious violent offence.
"This was a severe sentence, but not one which was manifestly excessive."
The appeal was dismissed.
