Police were laying in wait for couriers at a Welsh railway station having receiving intelligence that a consignment of drugs was on its way.
When officers spotted young men arriving at Aberystwyth station who seemed uncertain of where they were, the cops moved in and arrested them.
The passengers – from Norfolk – were later found to have stashes of heroin and cocaine hidden internally, and had been sent to Wales to deliver them on behalf of drugs gang.
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Swansea Crown Court heard that on April 8 this year police in Aberystwyth received information that people linked to a county lines drugs operation were travelling to the town.
Robin Rouch, prosecuting, said the officers went at the railway station to meet the train, and saw three males arriving who “appeared to be unsure of where they were”. The police approached them and were told by the visitors they had come to see family, and were planning to take a taxi to Port Talbot.
The men were arrested and, as police suspected they had drugs concealed internally, they were taken to the town’s Bronglais Hospital for scans. The tests showed the presence of packages hidden in the anuses of two of the men, 18-year-old Lewis Cook and 24-year-old Ronnie Dunne. Nature took its course and Cook was subsequently found to be carrying more than £4,000 worth of heroin, while Dunne had 39 rocks of crack cocaine worth around £780.
In his interview, Cook told officers that a man known as “Chef” had forced him to bring the drugs to Wales. He said it was the second time he had carried drugs for the man, and on the first occasion he had been robbed of the consignment at knife-point – a robbery he thought had been organised by Chef as a way of making him indebted to the gang.
Dunne provided a written statement to officers in which he said he had been coerced into acting as a courier, and that threats had been made against his family.
Mr Rouch said the prosecution did not challenge the assertions that the defendants were acting as couriers and were acting under “a degree of pressure” from others but he said it did not amount to the defence of modern slavery.
The court heard the third man arrested at Aberystwyth railway station had already been dealt with for the simple possession of cannabis.
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Lewis Cook, of Dairy Way, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, and Ronnie Dunne, of Archdale Street, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, had both previously pleaded guilty to possession of crack cocaine and heroin with intent to supply when they appeared in the dock together via videolink for sentencing.
Cook has a previous conviction for possession of cannabis with intent to supply, while Dunne has 24 previous convictions for 33 offences including dishonesty matters, offences of violence, the simple possession of drugs, criminal damage, and sending malicious communications. He is currently subject to a suspended sentence for a domestic incident which saw him damaging his former partner’s phone, and posting offensive messages on Facebook.
Paul Hobson, for Cook, said his client had turned 18 just four days before the trip to Aberystwyth. He said the background was one that the court would be familiar with from other county lines cases where a young person becomes “drawn-in through naivety” then becomes exploited by those more criminally sophisticated. The barrister said Cook had already spent four months on remand in custody – the equivalent of an eight month sentence – and he invited the court to consider suspending the inevitable prison sentence that was due.
Dyfed Thomas, for Dunne, said his client had experienced a “very difficult upbringing”, and was remorseful for getting involved in the activity which took him to Aberystwyth that day. He said the defendant had been taking courses in woodworking while in custody and had been offered work as a painter and decorator upon his eventual release, and it could be that he was at a “crossroads” where he had to decide how he was going to spend what should be the best years of his life.
Recorder Aidan Eardley said he had listened carefully to submissions from both counsel and, though the sentences he was about to pass were ones that could be suspended, the offending was too serious for suspension to be appropriate.
Giving the defendants a one-quarter discount for there guilty pleas he sentenced Cook to 21 months in a young offenders institution, and Dunne to 22 months and two weeks in prison. The recorder also activated two weeks of Dunne’s previously imposed suspended sentence to run consecutively, making an overall sentence for him of 23 months.
The defendants will serve up to half those periods in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
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