The Crown began its appeal yesterday against the sentence given to the son of former Government Health Minister Nelson Bascome.

Nelson Coleridge Vernon Bascomereceived three years? probation last December for importing marijuana worth more than $11,000 ? despite prosecution pleas for a prison sentence.

The former Howard University student was caught at Bermuda International 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 with a total street value of more than $11,000.

Crown counsel Vinette Graham-Allen said Bascome had told airport authorities the drugs were his and he planned to sell them wholesale to a friend.

?The inference can be drawn it wasn?t for his personal use.?

Appeal Court judge Gerald Collett quipped: ?Unless he was a very heavy smoker over a long period.?

At his trial Bascome, 24, of Friswell?s Hill, Pembroke, pleaded guilty to importation, but not guilty to being in possession of the controlled substance.

The charge of possession with intent to supply was ordered to remain on file. Although Bascome was of good character with no previous convictions Ms Graham-Allen said he showed no remorse for using the drug during his social inquiry report and had argued it should not be illegal.

She said: ?The chances of re-offending are high.?

Bascome later tested positive for the drug despite attending a drug treatment facility ? something he said he had done because he thought it would give him more leverage when he was sentenced.

She said courts had consistently tried to take into account the affects of deterrence when sentencing drug offenders but the sentence handed down by Archibald Warner was out of the normal range.

Sentencing breaks given to drug-addicted offenders under the Alternatives to Incarceration programme did not apply to drug importers, said Ms Graham-Allen.

Bascome had claimed he needed the drug to feed his addiction but Ms Graham-Allen said the only evidence of this was from a social inquiry report. She said: ?He is not forthcoming about his real intention about have a substantial amount of marijuana.?

She quoted varies cases where people had been jailed for several years for importing marijuana and noted that at one stage Bascome had pleaded not guilty to the offence.

Departing from the normal sentences would stir grievances in the community argued Ms. Graham-Allen.

Bascome had lost his athletic scholarship because he had tested positive for drugs and is now the father of a young child.

Earlier Bascome?s Jamaican Q.C. Frank Phipps tried to throw out the appeal arguing it was wrongly filed and should have come from the original Police officer who dealt with it in magistrate?s court rather than an individual prosecutor or the Crown.

However the Court of Appeal, headed Court of Appeal President Edward Zacca who was flanked by former Chief Justice Austin Ward and former Bermuda Attorney General Gerald Collett rejected this argument. Mr. Zacca said the reasons would be elaborated upon later.

The appeal resumes today when Mr Phipps will put his case.