Five jailed for dealing heroin on Welshpool’s streets

 

Michael Evans, Nykola Smith, Carl Barrett, Elizabeth Carlyle and Shaun Johnson received jail terms of from 15 months to 28 months, totalling almost nine years, after being targeted by Operation Marseilles which involved one officer embedding himself as a drug user. Eight more received suspended sentences.

 

And while senior officers have heralded the success of the convictions, Martin Blakebrough, chief executive of Kaleidoscope, a charity which supports people with drug and alcohol problems, believed this highlights a worrying development in drug use.

 

“It is very often perceived that drug use is a problem in just our towns and cities, but that just isn’t the case,” he said. “Until we address the problems of why people want to escape their lives – whether that’s through alcohol, legal highs or illegal drugs – these things will keep cropping up to muscle in on that demand.

 

“There’s a deep unhappiness in Wales, and we need to ask ourselves why that is. It’s easy to provide help in areas of high populations, but there are still areas where treatment isn’t available.

 

“Kaleidoscope works closely with the police and health bodies to support people. We also rely on the community and in the main towns in Powys we are opening centres. We understand people’s fears, but most drug users are vulnerable people, who need help.”

 

But for now, police believe they have snapped a major drugs operation in Montgomeryshire.

 

“This was a street level up operation which aimed to target street level markets, users, traffickers and hot spot areas,” said Deputy Chief Constable Jackie Roberts. “And the whole purpose was to disrupt, dismantle and destroy serious and organised crime, especially drug dealers and drug related crime.

 

“We are content with the sentencing, which we feel sends a clear signal to drug dealers, and the general public, that we will not tolerate this in our society and we will take action to keep our communities safe.”

 

The operation was lead by Dyfed Powys Police Serious and Organised Crime Team but also supported by local officers and other specialist officers to target those responsible for dealing heroin and drugs in Montgomeryshire.

 

Detective Chief Inspector Greg Williams of Dyfed-Powys Police Serious and Organised Crime Team said: “Operation Marseille was a successful covert police operation involving an undercover police officer posing as a drug user in an attempt to target heroin and crack cocaine supply into Montgomeryshire.

 

“Operation Marseille has dismantled an organised crime group which supplied Class A drugs on a daily basis within the towns of Newtown and Welshpool. Heroin shatters communities, families and young lives and it is only with the assistance of the public and other agencies that drug dealers from both outside the area and Montgomeryshire can be stopped, caught and imprisoned for a lengthy period of time”.

 

Recently, two huge cannabis farms have been discovered by police in properties in the Welshpool area and the force has reissued its message for the public to support their war on drugs.

 

If you have information about drug supply or use, contact the on 101 or the independent charity, Crimestoppers, anonymously on 0800 555 111.