A Preston man and his Liverpool accomplice who supplied £8,000 of cocaine in the city have been jailed for a total of 15 years.
AdvertisementMark Carter Jnr, 32, and John Johnson, 59, pleaded guilty to their roles in a wider conspiracy to flood the city with class A drugs in 2012 to 2013.
Preston Crown Court heard the pair were involved for a single day when there was a drought of cocaine in the city.
On February 6 2013, Carter contacted Johnson, a family member, in Liverpool and arranged to drive to the city to collect a shipment of cocaine from him.
But as Carter made his way back to Preston at 2.20pm, the van he was travelling in with another man was stopped and searched by police.
Officers found a package about the size of a TV remote in the footwell on the driver’s side of the vehicle, but Carter, of Brindle Road, Bamber Bridge, claimed he had never seen it before.
Closer inspection revealed the package contained 100g of high purity cocaine, at 64 per cent.
It had a street value of £8,000, the court heard. Johnson, of Pembroke Road, Liverpool, had previously served a lengthy prison sentence for drugs trafficking offences after being jailed for nine years in 2004.
Judge Robert Altham, sentencing, said: “He is higher up in the supply chain, supplying drugs into the Preston end of the conspiracy with an expectation of significant gain.”
Carter was bailed and pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply on the day he was due to stand trial.
But while he was on bail he committed a number of other offences including a “vicious and frenzied” attack on his brother which left him unable to speak or eat properly when his jaw was broken.
He was also caught in possession of amphetamine with intent to supply when he was stopped by officers in Wigan Road, Preston, and breached a restraining order when he contacted an ex-partner about his children.
Judge Altham jailed Carter for a total of eight years and 10 months for the four offences and Johnson for six years and six months.
He accepted prison life would be difficult for a man of Johnson’s age but the offence was so serious there was no alternative.