A teenager who has experienced numerous tragedies has been told by a court to accept the help offered to him.

Jamie Gelling, 19, of Manor Woods, Douglas, pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis when he appeared before High Bailiff Jayne Hughes on Tuesday.

Police executed a search warrant on his address on May 11 at 5pm when Gelling was at home.

During the search, officers found cannabis in a white sports bag in the garage, £800 in £20 notes and weighing scales.

He told officers the cannabis, which weighed 11.7g and has a street value of £234, was for personal use and the scales were used by him to weigh what he had bought. Gelling told them he had bought 27g of the drug a few weeks before his arrest.

Defence advocate Peter Taylor said that Gelling lost his job at the start of lockdown and used cannabis to deal with that and for coping with various family tragedies which had blighted his youth.

He contacted his GP during lockdown saying he was struggling, only to be told to contact the councilling services, which were closed. Mr Taylor said this had meant ’there was no intervention available’ to Gelling and that his client needs structure in his life.

Mrs Hughes asked probation officer Sarah Proudlove to produce a report on Gelling.

After speaking to him, Mrs Proudlove said various tragedies had meant Gelling faced a ’difficult childhood’. She said he ’uses cannabis to cope and manage his feelings and anxiety’.

Gelling has recently been living with his girlfriend and her family. Mrs Proudlove said Gelling ’speaks very highly’ of them and the support they have given him.

Mrs Proudlove noted that Gelling had sought help during lockdown and has been engaging with the Crisis Team and is no longer smoking cannabis.

Role model

She said she is ’surprised’ Gelling has not had support from probation before and that ’apart from his girlfriend’s family he has no real support’.

Mr Taylor added: ’Young people require role models. They appear to have been taken from him during his youth.’

In sentencing him, Mrs Hughes said many of the events in Gelling’s life ’must have been very upsetting for you’ but told him: ’Cannabis is not going to help you’.

She said he needed assistance and help and that was why she was going to issue him with a probation order for 12 months.

Mrs Hughes added: ’You are a young man with lots of potential, don’t waste it. Don’t come back before me again please.’

Gelling much also pay £125 prosecution costs.