High-earning Harrogate businessman hooked on cocaine burgled his girlfriend's home to pay off dealers

A high-flying Harrogate businessman hooked on cocaine burgled his girlfriend’s home and stole expensive computer equipment to feed his rampant cocaine habit.
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Shea Tyler, 32, a qualified lawyer and insurance broker from Harrogate, was so up to his neck in debt to his dealers that he resorted to criminality to pay them off, York Crown Court heard.

A Crown Court judge told the former City high-flyer he had literally “snorted his way to prison” after being remanded in custody following his arrest.

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Prosecutor Emma Handley said Tyler burgled the family home in Settrington, a village near Malton, in November last year, when he stole a laptop, two televisions and an X-Box games console.

Harrogate man Shea Tyler, 32, a qualified lawyer and insurance broker from Harrogate, was so up to his neck in debt to his dealers that he resorted to criminality to pay them off, York Crown Court heard.Harrogate man Shea Tyler, 32, a qualified lawyer and insurance broker from Harrogate, was so up to his neck in debt to his dealers that he resorted to criminality to pay them off, York Crown Court heard.
Harrogate man Shea Tyler, 32, a qualified lawyer and insurance broker from Harrogate, was so up to his neck in debt to his dealers that he resorted to criminality to pay them off, York Crown Court heard.

Eight months earlier, on March 31, he pinched a £300 laptop from a man in Leeds on the same day that he was caught drug-driving in a Kia Sportage. A blood test revealed that Tyler was over the specified limit for Benzoylecgonine, a cocaine by-product.

The businessman’s fall from grace was complete when he broke into the family home in Malton and stole over £1,400 of items, some of which were stolen from a bedroom.

Ms Handley said that on the day of the burglary, on November 22, he called his then girlfriend to say that the dealers to whom he was in debt were demanding their money back.

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He told her they had threatened to pay a visit to both their houses and his workplace.

The victim said the burglary had had a profound effect on her and her family.

Tyler, of Stonecrop Avenue, Killinghall, was arrested and charged with burglary, theft and drug-driving.

He admitted burgling his girlfriend’s home and drug-driving and was found guilty of stealing the laptop from the victim in Leeds.

He appeared for sentence today.

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His solicitor advocate Graham Parkin said the highly intelligent businessman spent his formative years in South Africa where he qualified in commercial law but returned to the UK in his 20s where he completed a degree in London and went on to become a chartered insurance broker for a firm in the capital.

He was earning good money and was “excited by that, but it brought with it its own dangers” with all the temptations for high living the capital had to offer.

“He had an introduction to the culture (in London) and that culture involved the use of cocaine,” said Mr Parkin.

“He was able to pay for his cocaine from his salary and thought he was fully in control of the situation rather than being addicted.

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“The result was that his performance levels (at work) dropped considerably, he began having hallucinations and he was then forced to leave his employment.

"By this stage he was heavily addicted to cocaine.”

Tyler, who had led a hitherto blame-free life, got himself another job in insurance brokerage and still had “plenty of money” to pay for his addiction but he lost that job as well, resulting in a “spiral of debt (and) no income”.

Mr Parkin said Tyler’s dealers had tried to “put the frighteners” on him on the day of the burglary and, in fear and having sold his car at a loss, he stole the items from his girlfriend’s home.

The relationship came to an abrupt end but Tyler formed a new relationship with a woman with whom he planned to move to Gipton in Leeds if he avoided a jail sentence.

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Mr Parkin said that “remarkably” a company had offered Tyler new work as a sales executive “subject to risk assessment”.

Judge Sean Morris said it was a “tragedy in the proper sense of the word” that Tyler had found himself in this situation, but it was “through your own actions”.

He told the disgraced businessman: “You were a successful individual, an accomplished sportsman and a clever man with a good job in London and you got into the cocaine, and it was a downward spiral.

"You snorted your way all the way to prison.”

He described the burglary as a “horrible, mean” offence.

“It really is so low (that) it shows you what drugs can do to an individual,” added Mr Morris.

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However, he said he would not be sending Tyler to prison because he had never been in trouble before and had already served the equivalent of a six-month jail sentence on remand.

Tyler was handed a 15-month suspended prison sentence which includes a six-month drug-rehabilitation programme and 20 days of rehabilitation activity.

He was ordered to pay his ex-girlfriend £1,470 for the stolen items and the victim in Leeds £300 for the theft of the laptop.

He was also slapped with a five-year restraining order banning him from contacting or approaching his ex-girlfriend and going to her home or workplace.