There are few things more embarrassing for a TV star or eastern suburbs socialite than being busted buying a bag and having to do the walk of shame to Waverley Local Court.
Only slightly less mortifying than being caught red-handed with a dial-a-dealer from out west is returning a positive test for whatever was left in your system from the night before.
The latest celeb to get caught on the snort is fiery chef Colin Fassnidge.
The My Kitchen Rules judge, 52, was stopped for a random drug and alcohol test on November 8 while driving along Malabar Road in South Maroubra.
While sitting alongside his wife in court on Wednesday, Fassnidge pleaded guilty to driving with an illicit drug present in his system. It was his second time before the court for the same matter after copping a fine for the same offence in 2022.
While Magistrate Jacqueline Milledge opted not to record a conviction, instead finding a two-year good behaviour bond more fitting in light of the public ignominy he’d faced, she didn’t let Fassnidge off without a dressing-down.
Indeed, Milledge’s public smackdowns have become something of a signature when dealing with cocaine celebs, earning her the nickname the ‘no-nonsense magistrate’.
‘You’ve only got to turn on the TV to see that people are being killed in our streets, homes are being firebombed, cars are being firebombed, homes are being shot up,’ she thundered.
The latest celeb to get caught on the snort is fiery chef Colin Fassnidge (pictured in 2023)
While Magistrate Jacqueline Milledge opted not to record a conviction, she didn’t let Fassnidge (centre, with his solicitor Bryan Wrench, left) off without a dressing-down
‘That’s the dirty, filthy reality of the drug industry.’
When Fassnidge’s solicitor Bryan Wrench said his client was trying to ‘redeem himself’, Magistrate Milledge asked pointedly: ‘Why didn’t he redeem himself in 2022?’
Back in 2021, legal sources revealed how Sydney magistrates were losing patience with the revolving door of ‘entitled cocaine consumers’ caught purchasing the drug.
‘They are sick and tired of seeing white-collar elites caught in possession of cocaine or caught using a dial-a-dealer,’ the insider said at the time.
‘They see the same routine – they hire an expensive barrister, they get counselling and often get let go on section 10 [where a defendant is found guilty, but no conviction recorded] and walk away with a fine [or] community service.’
Sometimes even that is considered too harsh and they simply waltz out the door, with the only punishment being a pap photo outside court and a story in the Daily Mail.
Before Fassnidge, the latest member of the club was fashion guru Katherine ‘Kate’ Killey who last April pleaded guilty to a single charge of possessing a prohibited drug after cops sprung her buying a bag on a Friday night in Bondi.
The 41-year-old, who used to do PR for Alice McCall and now runs her own fashion sales business, The Known Agency, had been spied by plainclothes police ducking into a Ford station wagon that had pulled up outside an apartment complex on Spring Street.
Before Fassnidge, the latest member of the club was Katherine ‘Kate’ Killey (pictured), who last April pleaded guilty to a single charge of possessing a prohibited drug
A quick search of the car showed it was from ‘well out of the area’.
When Ms Killey was seen exiting the vehicle just 20 seconds after sitting down in the passenger seat, it didn’t take Columbo to work out what was going on.
She was stopped by the cops and when asked if she had drugs on her, a ‘clearly remorseful’ Ms Killey handed over a little baggie with 0.6g of cocaine inside.
When the matter made it to court less than two weeks later, it was dismissed without conviction. And fair enough: Ms Killey, originally an Adelaide girl, has an otherwise unblemished reputation and is highly regarded in her industry.
She told the court she was ‘mortified’, deeply sorry and her solicitor argued a criminal record would seriously affect her globe-trotting career in fashion.
While a small-time eastern suburbs cocaine arrest hardly seems to raise eyebrows these days, the remarks by the weary magistrate bear repeating.
The Killey case reminded us of Kristin Fisher’s (pictured) brush with the law in 2021 and a thundering slapdown from a magistrate at the time
Judge Ross Hudson once thundered: ‘People who justify their cocaine usage as socially acceptable or as part of the social fabric… it is not. It is a criminal, illegal drug’
In a report by the Wentworth Courier, you could almost hear the despair in Stephen Barlow’s voice as he told the court that Ms Killey’s offending was ‘almost an eastern suburbs stereotype’ at this stage.
He went on to remark that ‘getting caught with cocaine in Bondi is pretty prevalent’.
Magistrate Barlow noted that ‘intelligent’ eastern suburbs high-flyers often assume they won’t get caught buying coke – even though police ‘have eyes on everyone around here’ as they seek to crack down on the illicit trade.
‘I’m not telling you to get your cocaine anywhere else,’ he added.
‘But you have to decide what’s more important: your career, your reputation and the ability to travel to New York without having to be cross-examined, or is it cocaine?’
It’s a good question – perhaps one that other Sydney businesswomen with plenty to lose should be asking themselves.
Now, Barlow’s gentle chiding of Ms Killey was nothing compared to the dressing-down fellow magistrate Ross Hudson gave Kristin Fisher back in October 2021 after her conviction for cocaine possession was annulled in the same court.
The Double Bay eyebrow technician, like Ms Killey, had been busted in a ‘dial-a-dealer’ situation after hopping into the passenger seat of a 19-year-old’s Kia Rio for a quick transaction.
A ‘mortified’ Ms Fisher apologised for her ‘dreadful mistake’ and her application to annul her sentence was duly granted.
But she was given a stern warning that was directed at many others in the east.
‘People who justify their cocaine usage as socially acceptable or as part of the social fabric… it is not. It is a criminal, illegal drug,’ thundered Hudson, who has since been appointed as a District Court judge.
‘It is a stain on our community. People in the eastern suburbs must be fed up with it.’
William Mooney escaped a conviction for cocaine possession in December 2022 after being caught throwing a bag he’d just bought from a Corolla-driving dial-a-dealer into a gutter
When it comes to slapping down eastern suburbs bag-buyers, few can compare to Magistrate Jacqueline Milledge
Of course, when it comes to slapping down eastern suburbs bag-buyers, Barlow and Hudson are wallflowers compared to Magistrate Milledge.
A Google search for ‘Jacqueline Milledge cocaine’ yields a highlight reel of takedowns so withering that I wonder if those on the receiving end of them ever fully recovered.
Take celebrity nose surgeon William Mooney, who escaped a conviction for cocaine possession in December 2022 after being caught throwing a bag he’d just bought from a Toyota Corolla-driving dial-a-dealer into a gutter.
The icing on the cake? He’d been standing in the middle of a Bondi Beach street in his boxer shorts.
Magistrate Milledge thundered: ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
When Mooney’s defence barrister argued his client was ‘not a drug user’ and had collected the cocaine outside his home for his girlfriend, Milledge questioned why he would be ‘with a partner who likes to stick it up her nose’. Ouch.
In a separate matter, an eastern suburbs schoolteacher faced Magistrate Milledge when she pleaded guilty to drug possession at Waverley in 2023.
She tried to claim the bag of coke in her possession belonged to a friend who ‘did not have a handbag’, but Milledge wasn’t buying it.
‘To your credit when you got caught, you were compliant [but] I don’t buy that you were minding it for someone… it was there to be enjoyed [by you],’ she said.
‘In life we all take risks, we jump out of planes… [you’re] someone who chose a [career] path which relies on integrity… you’ve said, “I’ll gamble all of that, because I want to stick something up my nose.”‘
No conviction was recorded.
New to DailyMail+? Here are our most-read stories from the past week