Embattled AFL great Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson CLEARED of drug trafficking charges after ‘police found almost 500 amphetamine tablets in his home’
- Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson has been cleared of drug trafficking charges
- He will face sentencing for three drug possession charges later on Thursday
- Former AFL coach said he spiralled after Essendon supplement scandal in 2012
Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson has been cleared of drug trafficking charges, but will still be sentenced for possession.
Magistrate Duncan Reynolds dismissed the trafficking charges, but told Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday morning the 55-year-old would still face charges over 480 ecstasy pills, ice, LSD and Xanax found in his home.
He will be sentenced later on Thursday.
During his trial, Thompson told the court his life had gone into a downwards spiral after the Essendon supplements scandal in 2012.
He admitted to using ice during the latter half of 2017, and said he was tempted to try LSD but ‘didn’t have the guts’.
‘Ice, that’s it really,’ he said when asked about his drug use.
Thompson said it had become a habit.
‘I was smoking too much,’ he said. ‘It was a difficult time. I left the industry where I worked in a bad way.’
Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson has been cleared of drug trafficking charges, but will face sentencing for drug possession charges (pictured arriving at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday)
He said he first got into ice when bikie drug seller Thomas Windsor knocked on his door in 2017 and offered him the drug.
‘I’d left all my friends and my social life, so I was happy to open the door and talk to someone,’ he said.
Thompson said the man, who was at first ‘charming’, pressured him to to let him move in to his home – and he struggled to get him to leave.
‘I knew he shouldn’t be there, but he broke me down,’ Thompson said.
‘He is a lot tougher than me. I didn’t know how to get rid of him’.
Almost 500 MDA tablets, Xanax, ice, an LSD tab and equipment, including scales, were found during a raid on Thompson’s Port Melbourne home in January 2018.
Police found the drugs and paraphernalia in a coded room off Thompson’s bedroom, where he kept scores of Geelong Cats memorabilia.
Thompson admitted to owning the scales and using them to make sure he got the quantity of drugs he had paid for.
‘I used to weigh stuff up,’ he said.
‘What you paid for is what you got.’
‘I can’t believe I’m saying this.’
More to come.
Thompson had told the court his life was in ruins after the Essendon supplements scandal in 2012, and he turned to ice in late 2017