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The great-grandson of Britain's wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill has been sentenced to at least 20 months jail for his part in a A$15 million ($17.24 million) ecstasy supply operation in Sydney.
But Nicholas Jake Barton will be eligible for parole in February next year, in time to visit his terminally ill mother in Britain.
Judge Colin Charteris told Downing Centre District Court there had been an opportunity to "temper justice with mercy".
Barton's mother, Arabella Spencer Churchill, the granddaughter of Sir Winston and daughter of his son Randolph, is expected to die from pancreatic cancer by April, the court was told.
Barton, 34, pleaded quilty earlier this year to taking part in supplying a commercial quantity of a prohibited drug in June 2006.
But Judge Charteris today found he had only a "belated and limited role in the supply of the drugs seized by police".
The judge said: "In determining the appropriateness of the sentence, the fact the defendant is descended from a hero of the 20th century does not affect the sentence I must impose."
He said it "was of historical importance only".
The court was told Barton sublet a rental property in Malabar Road, in the eastern Sydney suburb of Coogee, to his co-accused, New Zealander Reese Gerard Woodgate, in early June 2006.
When police raided the property on June 17 of that year they found a black backpack containing 10kg of ecstasy tablets and 12kg of MDMA - the powder used to make the drug.
A pill press, four tins of acetone, scales, gloves and other equipment were also seized.
The court heard Barton was living with his wife and young stepdaughter in Byron Bay at the time, but had rented the property with the intention of moving to Sydney in September 2006.
He sublet it to Woodgate to avoid paying rent in the intervening three months.
Barton did not give evidence during his trial but provided a statement to the court.
In it, he claimed when he first sublet the property he did not know Woodgate would involve himself in the illegal drug trade.
But Barton admitted that when he did find out, "to my utter regret, I didn't take action to stop it ... and became complicit."
Judge Charteris found there was no evidence Barton had been enriched by his involvement.
He added Barton's guilty plea, despite the Crown's weak case, indicated "genuine contrition".
Barton had references from his uncle, the former British MP also named Winston Churchill, as well as Sir Winston's last surviving child.
He was sentenced to three years jail with a minimum term of 20 months, backdated to June 17 last year, when he was first taken into custody.
He will be eligible for parole on February 16, 2008, and Judge Charteris said he should then be granted permission to leave the country in order to visit his dying mother.
Sir Winston was Britain's Conservative prime minister from 1940 until the end of World War 2 in 1945, then again for four years from 1951.
- AAP
