A drug trafficker who was meant to stand trial by jury but decided to plead guilty was yesterday jailed for nine years and fined €5,000.

Marvin Pavia, 32, was charged with conspiring to traffic cannabis and with possession of over 1.5 kilogrammes of the drug in 2003.

Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano said he had taken into consideration all the circumstances of the case, among them that the accused had confessed his involvement. But this could certainly not be considered to be admitting at an early stage because the case has been in court since 2004.

He said the court could not help but remark that this was a classic case, where if the accused had really wanted to, he could have admitted years ago and avoided not only loss of time, including for himself, and loss of resources but benefit from a bigger reduction in the punishment.

The Chief Justice also took into consideration the amount of drugs found and that Mr Pavia has no drug dependency problem and had committed the crime purely for financial gain. The case was not limited to a single incident but consisted in a series of occasions where he had given cannabis to people he knew and, in some instances, acted as an intermediary.

Referring to the testimony by Joseph Pace, managing director of Consolidated Biscuits Co. Ltd, where the accused had been employed since 2006 and noting that Mr Pace described Mr Pavia as an exemplary employee, the Chief Justice noted that it seemed as though Mr Pavia had realised he had made mistakes and tried everything to get back onto the straight and narrow.