A teenager was thrown from a stolen motorbike when a drug courier from “Team Josh” crashed it into a car.
Thomas Kehoe hurtled into the hatchback on Halton Road in Runcorn at about 1.30pm on Thursday, June 9. The 29-year-old, of Lathum Close in Prescot, was seen in CCTV footage ploughing the Yamaha motorbike into the side of a Citroen DS 4.
Cheshire Police said the figure thrown through the air in the clip is likely to be Kehoe's 16-year-old pillion passenger who can be seen briefly sitting upright on the back before the impact. The Bootle teenager was taken to Whiston Hospital with minor injuries and later arrested on suspicion of burglary over the motorbike.
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Kehoe was treated by paramedics for what were believed to be serious injuries at the time, and later arrested by police for driving without due care and attention when the opportunity arose.
Police discovered that the main casualty in the crash turned out to not just be a bad motorcyclist, but also a county lines Class A drug courier and member of the “Josh Team” crew being investigated in Runcorn as part of Operation Toxic by Cheshire Police.
Only months earlier in February, Kehoe’s fingerprints were found on a Tesco carrier bag containing 2kg of cocaine that was discovered under the passenger seat of a white van abandoned by Kehoe in Birmingham as detectives attempted to intercept him as he drove from residential area to area.
Police in Cheshire investigating county lines drug supply from Merseyside into Runcorn linked Kehoe to two pay-as-you-go graft phones that were used to send flare messages and one of which was filmed being topped up by Kehoe in a shop.
Chester Crown Court heard on Friday how Kehoe also used one of the graft phones to call his girlfriend more than anyone else, and he was in possession of the other device when he crashed on Halton Road.
After providing “no comment” answers in interview with the police, Kehoe pleaded guilty to: possession with intent to supply Class A cocaine relating to the Birmingham bust, driving without due care and attention, uninsured driving, driving disqualified, driving other than in accordance with a licence, attempting to possess Class B amphetamines, and being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs crack cocaine and heroin spanning September 2021 to June 2022. A charge of riding with no helmet was dropped.
Recorder Mark Ainsworth expressed sympathy for some of Kehoe’s family circumstances but said graft phones are a “hub of activity” for drug gangs, meaning Kehoe was “in it” and “not peripheral”.
He sentenced Kehoe - who had previous Class A drug supply convictions - to five years and four months in prison, and banned him from driving for 12 months upon his release.
Sending him down, the judge said: “If anyone asked the question ‘why do courts take such a stern view of the supply of drugs?’ - the answer is we come into court and listen to cases like yours, because yours is a classic case of somebody who starts to use drugs including Class A drugs and finds themselves on a downward spiral.
“They find themselves in debt to drug dealers, and they find themselves in a position where they move into supplying the drugs to try to pay off that debt. That’s what happened in this case.
“It may have taken you many years to reach this point. Let me make myself clear. I don’t regard you as a victim in this case.
“Yes, there were pressures upon you, but you chose to act in this way, and finally pass the misery onto other people.”
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