Andrew Duff, from Darlington, was jailed for three years, and North Yorkshire pair Paul Rogers and Claire Trainor were sentenced to 18 months each. Teesside Crown Court heard that Duff was one of the best customers of the sprawling network, and had once spent more than £1,000 for a delivery. Along with addicts such as Rogers and Trainor, he would meet couriers at Darlington railway station after they got off trains from King’s Cross. Some of the delivery workers would also take taxis to Teesside to supply dealers there, who then sold to others from County Durham and Tyneside. A series of raids involving more than 400 police officers – some armed – were carried out in six force areas across the country in April last year. Police chiefs were concerned that the threat of turf wars and gun crime could follow crack cocaine to the region as it had in places such as Nottingham. After months of surveillance and intelligence-gathering, the raids – part of Operation Elland – were carried out with help from the Metropolitan Police. Duff, 29, of Estoril Road, Rogers, 25, of Gatherley Moor Farm, Gilling West, Richmond, and Trainor, 28, of Moor Road, Melsonby, were arrested. Imran Ashgar, from Tyneside, his girlfriend Gemma McCabe, and Chester-le-Street man Jai Smith were among the others held after the swoops. Ashgar, 32, of Beechcroft Avenue, Newcastle, admitted using criminal property and possessing criminal property – almost £53,000 – last summer. McCabe, 26, of Linley Court, Stockton, admitted possessing crack cocaine, and Smith, 28, of Primrose Gardens, admitted three counts of possessing heroin. Ashgar was given a 12- month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with supervision, and was ordered to do 250 hours of unpaid work. Recovering addict Smith was sentenced to a 12-month community order with supervision, and told to take part in a drug rehabilitation course. The court heard that the money found during the raid at Ashgar’s home was not the proceeds of selling drugs, but had been stolen from the family firm.
Christopher Knox, mitigating, said Ashgar had badly let down his family, but his father and brother – also partners in the business – did not want him jailed. Duff ’s barrister, Adrian Dent, told the court that he accepted he benefited from the supply of drugs, but said: “It was low-level activity.” Yvonne Taylor, for Rogers, said the father-of-two had a serious heroin habit, but has been drug-free for several weeks and has no association with users. Paul Cleasby, for mother-ofthree Trainor, said she had been out of trouble since her arrest and was seeking help for her heroin addiction. Judge Spittle told the pair: “You went into it with your eyes open... for those involved to the extent you were in the distribution of Class A drugs, the courts have got to mark that in a deterrent way.”
Duff, Rogers and Trainor pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs between January 2005 and April last year. The leader of the network, Jamaican hard-man Albert Thoms, and all but one of his couriers, admitted conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. The final man, Wycliffe Clarke, also from London, pleaded guilty to a charge of being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs. McCabe admitted possessing Class A drugs on the basis she travelled to Middlesbrough to buy them – spending more than £1,700 a week. She went on the run after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing, and a warrant has been issued for her arrest. Ewan Duff, for Smith, said he had not offended again since his arrest and was doing well in his bid to beat his addiction. The hub of the organisation, Claudine Neil – known as Donna because that was the name she gave to customers – was jailed for two years in June after she admitted her part in the conspiracy.
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