Drug-dealing dwarf spared jail so he can keep his specially adapted home

A dwarf has been avoided jail for dealing crack cocaine after a court was told he would lose his specially adapted home if he was given a prison term. 3ft 9in Pele Watson, was caught by an undercover officer who bought drugs from him outside an east London bookmakers. The policeman, who called himself 'Jazz', saw Watson, aged 40, outside Totesport on Bow Road, Mile End, and asked if he could buy some heroin.

Watson told him he was not a drug dealer, but Watson's friend Danny Grant, 44, then emerged from the shop and asked if Jazz ever smoked any 'white', meaning crack, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard. The two men said they could supply him with the drug if he broke off a piece for them to use. Watson asked for £20 and disappeared down a side street with the money, while Grant waited with 'Jazz' and even joked he was an undercover officer. He added he was joking and was actually 'the biggest smoker in the area.'



Later that day, the dwarf handed Jazz an 0.17g rock of crack outside his flat on Wellington Way, Tower Hamlets. When the officer asked if he could buy any more drugs in future, Watson said they could meet up at the bookies because he was 'always' there. Jeremy Rendle, defending Watson, said his client was an addict and hadn't made any money from the offence. He said: 'He suffers from a condition he told me is called achondroplasia, but then in response to my blank look described as dwarfism.

'He is diagnosed as suffering with paranoid schizophrenia and depression, for which he takes a cocktail of prescribed medications. If he were given an immediate custodial sentence it's likely he would lose his home, which is being refurbished in order to meet his physical needs.' Passing sentence, Judge Sarah Paneth said she could have easily jailed Grant for three and a half years and Watson for two and a half. Instead she gave Grant an 18-month supervision order with six months of drug rehabilitation and Watson a 12-month order with the same rehab requirement.