A small gathering with friends has come at a cost for a Port Erin man who will serve three months in prison.

David Joseph Dickinson, 24, of Fairy Hill, was sentenced on Thursday by Deputy High Bailiff Chris Arrowsmith after pleading guilty to breaching the Emergency Powers Act and for possession of cannabis.

Prosecutor Chrissie Hunt told the court, which was held remotely, that police were called to reports of a party at the former swimming pool at Traie Meanagh at 8.40pm on April 21.

Officers found five people at the former pool and it was ’clear’ that drugs and alcohol and been used and drank.

Mrs Hunt said that Dickinson ’fully and frankly admitted’ that he had stashed cannabis in a drain nearby.

He showed officers where it was and when it was later weighed, the amount was found to be worth no more than £2.

She said Dickinson told police he had gone for a walk when he bumped into friends and went with them as he needed a ’secluded area’ to smoke a joint.

He says he uses cannabis for pain relief due to a medical condition which he was due to have treatment for before the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown began.

Defence advocate David Clegg said that Dickinson deserved credit for his cooperation with the police and pleading guilty at the first available opportunity.

Mr Clegg noted that the typical sentence for a Covid-19 breach was between four and five weeks and that Dickinson had already served just over one week on remand, equal to just over a two-week sentence.

He said that the £2 of cannabis Dickinson was found with was ’not enough to share in realistic terms’ and that he has only continued to smoke cannabis for pain relief as his prescribed medicines have little effect on the pain he experiences on a daily basis.

Since his previous conviction for supplying cannabis in August 2018, for which Dickinson received a total of a nine- month sentence, suspended for two years, he has been under a supervision order.

Mr Clegg said that this case was the first time Dickinson had appeared in front of the court since then and there had been ’no issues’ with the order since it was imposed.

He asked that Dickinson be allowed to continue his order and said this incident was ’out of character with the person he is becoming’.

Deputy High Bailiff Chris Arrowsmith said Dickinson deserved credit for complying with the order placed on him in 2018 and for his cooperation with the police.

However, he added that it was ’not unjust’ to activate part of his suspended sentence and said that Dickinson was ’under no illusion’ of this.

He said Dickinson had ’made a decision’ to gather with others despite the regulations which ’protect the well-being of residents of the Isle of Man’.

For the Covid-19 breach, Dickinson was sentenced to 28 days in custody.

Mr Arrowsmith also activated part of his suspended sentence, sentencing Dickinson to a further two months in prison, to run consecutively, giving him a total sentence of three months.