Matthew Spencer, 32, supplied cannabis and cocaine to officers (From The Northern Echo)

Matthew Spencer, 32, supplied cannabis and cocaine to officers

9:03am Monday 8th February 2010 in

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A PUB boss who provided undercover police with drugs has walked free from court – despite a suspended prison sentence hanging over him.

Matthew Spencer, 32, supplied cannabis and cocaine to officers who befriended him and who he thought were new customers at his bar.

Spencer had no idea the men were test-purchase officers working for North Yorkshire Police as part of Operation Decaf in the summer of 2008.

Teesside Crown Court heard the undercover policemen supplied Spencer with cut-price training shoes and clothes as they tried to gain his trust.

On three occasions in June and July, Spencer acted as a go-between to get the officers cannabis, and also provided them with two wraps of cocaine.

In November 2008, the former soldier was arrested at The Ship, in Richmond, where he was the manager, and he had a small amount of cannabis.

It later emerged that he was on a suspended prison sentence for bigamy – after getting married in 2006 when he was still married to another woman.

Spencer married a fellow soldier’s daughter while serving at an Army base in Wales in 1998, but separated three years later, after having a daughter.

He was then posted to Northern Ireland, refused to sign divorce papers, lost contact with his wife, and met and married another woman in 2006.

In January 2008, he was given a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, with an electronic tag curfew by Judge Guy Whitburn.

Five months later, he was acting as an intermediary for the bogus drugusers and a supplier when he worked in the Bishop Blaizes, in Richmond.

Mark Styles, mitigating, told the court that Spencer was “pestered” by the officers to get him drugs, and was encouraged by the cheap goods.

“It was really foolishness on his part,” Mr Styles told Judge Peter Bowers on Friday.

“This is a man who clearly ought to have known better.

“They became what he thought was friendly. . . he thought he was doing these people a favour. . . he was, essentially, acting as a go-between.”

Spencer, of Darlington Lane, Richmond, admitted four charges of supplying drugs, one of offering to supply them and one of possession.

He was given a ninemonth prison sentence, suspended for a year, with Probation Service supervision, and 250 hours of unpaid community work.

Judge Bowers, who also ordered former Royal Signalman Spencer to pay £400 costs, told him: “This is the last chance you’ll get.

You don’t get another one.

“If I thought for a moment that you had made any gain out of this, you would have gone immediately to prison.

“I am quite satisfied that you thought the officers were your mates, and you were simply doing them a good turn by, effectively, acting as a middle-man.”