Glastonbury security guard jailed for advertising drugs at the festival

A security guard who was working at Glastonbury Festival has been jailed for advertising drugs for sale during the event.

An inspection of Osman Osman's phone revealed he had been trying to sell drugs during the festival in June 2022.

Osman, 23, appeared at Swansea Crown Court for sentencing having been convicted by a jury after trial of being concerned in the supply of cocaine, being concerned in the supply of ketamine, and being concerned in the supply of cannabis.

On October 26 last year he was with another man travelling in a Toyota vehicle in Swansea with Osman driving. In the car was a mobile phone which police later examined and found messages offering drugs for sale.

Other messages and photographs were found suggesting that the phone belonged to him.

The messages relating to the sale of drugs were sent in June 2022 when he was working at Glastonbury in a security role, the court heard.

In a defence statement he claimed he was not the only user of the phone and not the person who had sent the drug-related messages.

His barrister Josh Radcliffe argued that there had been "no case to answer" during the trial claiming it could not be proven that he had authored the messages but that was rejected by the judge.

Mr Radcliffe, mitigating, said: "There is no evidence that any transactions were completed in this case so the harm is very low and a lack of gain.

"This was supply at a festival. It was not, perhaps, like a person who supplies Class A drugs to the retched and miserable who are addicted to those substances. Festivals attract people who are, for lack of a better term, recreational drug users.

"I suggest there is something less noxious of someone selling at a festival compared to someone hanging outside the school gates."

Judge Christopher Vosper KC sentenced Osman, of Menzies Court, Manchester, to three and a half years in prison. A forfeiture and destruction order has been made for the phone.