Two drug dealers involved in a County Lines drugs operation effectively ran a drugs call centre, a court heard.
Natasha Hanson and her accomplice, Khristopher Burton, ran what police said was known as the 'Paddy line', supplying Class A drugs from Merseyside to the Shrewsbury area during 2019 and 2020. Officers investigating the supply raided an apartment in Lockerby Road, Kensington, on January 17 last year.
Both defendants were present and in the pocket of Hanson’s dressing gown they found a mobile phone which was actively receiving calls and texts. Officers also found cannabis and behind a bath panel they discovered a stun gun on which their DNA was found.
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Graham Pickavance, prosecuting, said “a graft phone’, two iPhones and a ‘tic list’ referring to cocaine and heroin, were also found. An address in Lowfield, Shrewsbury was searched and a bank card in Hanson’s name was found which had been used to pay drug money into her bank account, some had been transferred to Burton’s account.
Mr Pickavance said the graft phone had sent 7,033 messages between January 3 and 20th, 2020, which were broadcast messages advertising the availability of cocaine and heroin being supplied in a ‘county lines’ type of network. When 32-year-old Hanson’s Santander bank account was examined it was found that in the three months up to January 16, 2020 a total of £19,047 had gone through her account, which the Crown say related to drugs transactions, he said.
Both Hanson and Burton, 42, of Bird Street, Wavertree, were released pending investigation. On October 7, 2021 police on patrol in the Monksmr area of Shrewsbury saw Hanson riding a bike. She was told to stop but continued to cycle along the road fiddling with her bra strap. She was stopped and told she was going to be taken to searched.
She was placed in the rear of a police car where she produced a plastic bag from her bra. Also a Nokia mobile phone, £95 cash and a Halifax saver card. The bag was found to contain 28 wraps of crack cocaine and 23 wraps of heroin, worth a total of £510. The phone was found to have been in contact with a ‘paddy line’ phone and 2,167 messages had been sent from it in a three week period.
Burton and Hanson both pleaded guilty to two charges involving being concerned in supplying heroin and cocaine and possessing the stun gun. Judge David Swinnerton jailed Burton for three years.
Hanson, formerly of Cadfael Way, Shrewsbury, also admitted possessing cocaine and heroin with intent and being concerned in supplying those drugs. She was jailed for six years.
Frank Dillon, defending, said the defendants “had effectively been running a call centre of behalf of others.” He explained Burton, whose previous convictions including possessing drugs, had had a gambling addiction “which explains why he was easily led into this activity for financial gain.
Mr Dillon said Burton also had an alcohol addiction and health problems.
Defence barrister, Peter Wilson, said Hanson, who has no previous convictions, is “remorseful and regretful. She knows the harm drugs can cause. She became involved to support her own habit. He said Hanson, who had been badly hit by the loss of her parents, has been drug free since her arrest and intends working as a drugs counsellor after her release.
“She hopes to help others not to make the same mistakes she made,” he explained.
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