After recently being released from prison for drug importation, the son of PLP MP and former Health Minister Nelson Bascome was handed down a six-month suspended sentence in Magistrates? Court yesterday for dodging his Regiment duties.

Nelson Coolridge Bascome, 26 of Friswell?s Hill, Pembroke, pleaded guilty to failing to attend six training sessions at Warwick Camp between September 8 and September 29.

Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrossen said Bascome was enlisted as a Private in the Bermuda Regiment on December 6, 2003 and has two years and four months left to serve.

Bascome said he was not sure when the training sessions began as he had not been given a schedule. However, he added that he was now attending regular training sessions.

Magistrate Juan Wolffe gave Bascome a six month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

Bascome has just been released from prison after the Court of Appeal sentenced him to a year behind bars in June 2004 for importing more than $11,000 worth of marijuana to the Island on December 18, 2002.

Bascome was caught at the airport after taking a flight from Philadelphia on December 18, 2002.

He had 0.8 grams of marijuana in his wallet and 226.8 grams of cannabis strapped to his body.

Crown Counsel Vinette Graham-Allen said in 2002 that it was not likely that Bascome had the drugs for personal use as he had told airport authorities that the drugs were his and that he planned to sell them wholesale to a friend.