foolsgold
Bluelighter
TEN members of a gang that dealt up to 7,000 bags of cocaine on the streets of North Yorkshire have been jailed.
Sentencing of the Thirsk-based gang was brought forward by two weeks, after North Yorkshire Police uncovered a plot to wreak havoc on the streets of the town with a “violent farewell party”.
The gang’s leader, Nathaniel Hollywood, 27, of Thirsk, was remanded in custody, after his sentencing was adjourned. Two other leading gang members, street supply organiser Robert Sargent, 29, from Thirsk, and large-scale supplier John Wilson, 38, from Leeds, were both jailed for ten years.
The pair were found guilty of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs on June 13, following a trial at Teesside Crown Court.
Eight other Thirsk men pleaded guilty at an earlier heating to being involved in the plot to supply cocaine. They were Samuel Benjamin, 21, Scott Clark, 23, Jordan Easby, 19, Thomas McDowell, 19, Daniel Sargent, 22, Brett Waterston, 26, Stuart Wright, 23, and Darren Wrightson, 27.
Easby and Waterson were handed nine-month suspended prison sentences, while the others were each jailed for between two years and seven years and one month.
The court heard the men collected an estimated 5kg of cocaine from Wilson, worth up to £210,000.
The drugs were sold in small batches on the streets of Thirsk and Ripon, in beer gardens, alleys and behind pubs.
Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC said it was clear the gang had been operating longer than the period they were under police surveillance, between September 2011 and February 2012.
He said: “Class A drugs are not restricted to being an inner city problem, and here they wanted to take advantage of the market towns of Thirsk and to a lesser extent Ripon.”
The judge commended the police operation, which involved up to 20 officers and saw members of the gang repeatedly sell one-gram bags of cocaine for £30 to undercover officers.
Officers uncovered the conspiracy after finding a list of people who owed money to Hollywood on his mobile phone during a raid on his home.
After the sentencing, Detective Inspector Darrin Knight said: “They operated a business model linking supply and demand to a product and invested a great deal of time and resource into covertly transporting large quantities of cocaine into the county.
“There will now be 11 people, who were a serious threat to the Thirsk and Ripon area, off the streets for significant lengths of time.”
