Robert John Harper was sentenced to a further three and a half years in jail after pleading guilty to trafficking fentanyl and meth. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

jail time

Repeat Nanaimo fentanyl trafficker serving back-to-back jail sentences

Aug 5, 2021 | 12:06 PM

NANAIMO — A drug trafficker caught red-handed by Nanaimo RCMP was sentenced to an additional three and a half years in jail, less than three months after he was put away for separate local drug offences.

Robert John Harper, 35, was sentenced by BC Supreme Court Justice Robin Baird on July 2 in Nanaimo. The ruling from Justice Baird was recently published online.

The offender was caught on Aug. 14, 2019 inside a vehicle by police outside a low-income housing complex in Nanaimo with over an ounce of fentanyl and eight grams of methamphetamine.

Baird said searches of Harper’s vehicle also found “a not inconsiderable amount of benzodiazepine which, combined with fentanyl, has disastrous effects on users.”

The drug haul was worth “thousands of dollars” according to a Crown’s expert witness.

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Justice Baird noted he heard evidence Harper was poised to sell drugs to residents of the low-income complex where he was arrested, believed to be home to many drug addicted and disadvantaged people.

“Mr. Harper, I have to tell you that the offences before me are extremely serious and a heavy penalty has to be paid. There is no way around it,” Justice Baird stated.

Harper pleaded guilty trafficking fentanyl and meth on Feb. 23, 2021.

He was sentenced on three separate drug charges in BC Supreme Court in Nanaimo on April 16 for a local dial-a-dope operation in 2017, resulting in 27 months behind bars.

Harper has roughly a year remaining on his original sentence due to credit for time already served. Justice Baird ordered Harper’s latest jail tenure be served consecutively to the other offences.

Court was told Harper had a difficult, unstable upbringing in Port Alberni.

He dropped out of school in the eighth grade and struggled with substance abuse ever since.

Harper had no criminal convictions before the age of 30, when court was told he began experimenting with meth, becoming addicted to it and causing him to lose everything as a result.

Harper’s post-release plan includes living with his father in Port Alberni.

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