When police raided an Airbnb rental property in Swansea they found a heroin and crack dealer trying to flush his drugs phone down the toilet.
Ryan Sexon and Jack Finn were involved in a so-called county lines drug dealing operation, and had already built up a "substantial client base" in the city before officers kicked the door down. As well as the drug dealing phone - found cracked and waterlogged on the bathroom floor - officers recovered Class A drugs, weighing scales, and more than £13,000 in cash.
Sending the pair to prison a judge told them it was clear they had travelled to Swansea "for one reason and one reason only" - namely to sell Class A drugs on the streets of the city.
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Ian Wright, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that on the afternoon of March 22 this year officers in the Plasmarl area of Swansea saw a male emerging from a property on Dinas Street and make his way via an alleyway to Neath Road. As the officers kept watch, the male approached a stationary car and a transaction took place with the female passenger of the vehicle. The officers moved in and the male - now known to be 24-year-old Sexon - ran off. He was chased, caught, and taken to the ground. The passenger in the car was also detained.
The court heard officers then forced entry to the house Sexon had come from. Inside they found do-defendant Finn in the doorway of the bathroom - his hands and arms were soaking wet, and the floor of the bathroom was covered in water. Near the toilet police found a mobile phone which had a cracked screen and had water in it. A subsequent search of the house found weighing scales containing traces of heroin, crack cocaine, and cutting agents used to bulk out drug deals, used latex gloves, rolls of cling film, and the remains of packaging which had once contained drugs. Inside a Nike rucksack in the living room was £12,000 while other quantities of cash were found at a number of different locations. Finn also had £230 in his pocket. In total police recovered £13,460 in cash. Officers also found just over 5g of cocaine in a shoe box in one of the bedrooms, drugs worth up to £600 at street prices.
Mr Wright said when the phone belonging to the woman in the car on Neath Road was examined, it was found to have received two calls from the phone found on the bathroom floor in the 20 minutes prior to the drugs transaction. Read about a man who pulled a knife on McDonald's customers and staff after being refused service at drive thru.
When interviewed by officers the defendants answered "no comment" to all questions asked.
Ryan William Sexon, of West Way, Botley, Oxford, had previously pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cocaine, being concerned in the supply of heroin, and possessing criminal property - namely cash - when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. In 2016 he was sentenced to 30 months in a young offenders institution at Norwich Crown Court for conspiracy to supply crack cocaine and heroin. This offending had seen him along with a group of other men take over a property in the Norfolk town of Great Yarmouth and use it as a base for selling Class A drugs as part of a county lines operation.
Jack Martin Finn, of Nevill Road, Hackney, London, had previously been convicted at trial of being concerned in the supply of heroin, being concerned in the supply of cocaine, and possessing criminal property when he appeared in the dock alongside his co-defendant. He has previous convictions for robbery and possession of bladed articles, and in 2018 received a suspended sentence at Oxford Crown Court after being convicted on possession of crack and heroin with intent to supply, an offence committed in the village of Bister the previous year when he had been caught in a park with wraps of the drugs.
Ian Ibrahim, for Sexon, said the defendant had a young son who was the "apple of his eye", and he said his client was "at a point in his life when he has to make a choice".
David Singh, for Finn, said prior to his arrest the defendant had been working full-time as a delivery driver, and he said given he had been convicted at trial his client was realistic about the lengthy sentence he was facing.
Judge Paul Thomas QC told the defendants they had come to Swansea "for one reason and one reason only" - and that was to peddle Class A drugs on the streets of the city. He said the county lines dealing operation had been a relatively sophisticated one, and it was clear by the time of the pair's arrest that it was "a very lucrative one" with "a substantial client base".
With a 20 per cent discount for his guilty pleas Sexon was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison; Finn - who did not have the benefit of a guilty plea discount - was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison. 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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