A court has heard how an electronically monitored tag administered to a Pembrokeshire man as he awaits sentence for supplying cocaine is ‘an absolute nightmare’.

“It’s already fallen off twice and it’s so bad that even the people who monitor it have written to the Crown Court to say that’s it’s virtually unworkable,” commented solicitor Michael Kelleher when his client Daniel Ferman appeared before Haverfordwest magistrate on Tuesday.

Ferman, 31, of Maes Y Mynydd, Newport, appeared in custody when he admitted breaching one of the bail conditions which had been imposed by Swansea Crown Court last year.

The condition requires him to remain at his home address on a daily basis between 8pm and 6am. But at approximately 21.40 hours on January 22, monitoring officers failed to make contact with him via the electronically monitored tag system.

“Despite their efforts, there was a negative response recorded,” said Crown Prosecutor Anne Griffiths.

But this, stressed Mr Kelleher, was the result of the tag's inefficiency.

Ferman has already pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of Class A cocaine between June 2019 and March 2020 and a further charge of being concerned in the supply of Class B cannabis between June 2019 and April 2020.

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He is currently on conditional bail to await sentence later this year.

After listening to his mitigation, magistrates agreed to release him on conditional bail with the proviso that his electronic tag system is fully functional.

The conditions are that he resides at his home address and that he obeys the daily curfew between 8pm and 6am.