Man jailed for four years over £50,000 drugs stash

Police decided to investigate Darren Gell’s activities when they spotted him snorting a line of cocaine off a window pane in York city centre at 1.30am, said Nick Adlington, prosecuting.

They found cannabis with a street value of £28,890 in his loft, m-Cat with a resale value of £17,700 and evidence that he had supplied cocaine to another person.

Released on bail, he hid 51.3g of cocaine worth £3,840 in his locker at Malton Bacon Factory, where he was a junior manager, but police got a tip-off and found it.

Recorder James Baird said the fact that Gell had hidden the cocaine in a place where he had a position of trust as supervisor was an aggravating feature.

“The only sentence I can impose in your case is an immediate term of imprisonment,” he said at York Crown Court.

Gell, 33, who lived with his girlfriend Alana Michelle Roberts, 29, in Foss Court, Huntington Road, York, pleaded guilty to supplying cocaine, and possession with intent to supply of cannabis, m-Cat and cocaine. In each case, the prosecution accepted his basis that he was storing the drugs on behalf of someone else.

His barrister Glenn Parsons said he had been mixing in the drugs world and saw getting paid for storing the drugs as a “short cut to an honest lifestyle”. Since his arrests, he had learnt his lesson. He was a hard worker who had heart and breathing difficulties.

David James Flintham, 32, who had previous drug convictions and whose fingerprints were found on the packaging containing the cannabis, pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis with intent and was jailed for 18 months.  He lived with his girlfriend Michelle Elizabeth Evans, 31, in Cambridge House, Bootham Terrace, York,

His barrister Andrew Stranex said he had fallen back into offending because he had lost his job.
Roberts was fined £250 for trying to get drugs for a party which never took place and Evans was fined £100 after admitting two charges of possessing drugs.