A GANG of Jamaican gangsters who spread their £1.768 million drug dealing ring to York have been sentenced to a combined total of 30 years in prison.

Judge James Barry described their crack cocaine operation, which sold from a terraced home in Clifton and a string of addresses in Harehills, Leeds, as "vile".

He said that, despite the previous good character and glowing references of some of the five men, only considerable sentences would be seen by the "right-thinking public" to offer "reasonable protection against such crimes".

Disabled Ainsley Rease, 41, described as a "shopkeeper" for York addicts, was ordered to serve a total of seven years for his role in selling drugs from a house in Newborough Street, and for continuing to serve customers from Leeds crack dens while on bail.

Judge Barry said he would also be recommending Rease's deportation from the country to the Home Office, despite earlier pleas that he would be persecuted for his homosexuality, because the continuation of his crimes after he was first caught showed a lack of remorse.

"At your age, you must have seen the sense in avoiding being involved with younger men in a trade of this sort," he told Rease.

The gang's ringleader, Glenford Adams, of Leeds, was also told he would be deported. The 32-year-old gay hairdresser's life had spiralled into drugs and crime since he learned he was HIV positive.

The judge labelled him the "entrepreneurial energy" masterminding the operation and sentenced him to 12 years in prison.

"It was a very aggravated conspiracy indeed, not really measured by the amounts of drugs found or the profit identified," he said.

Adams' former lover and "right hand man", Carlton Ford, 20, was given a four-year jail term while "lieutenants" Andrew Lyttle, 27, and Syddon Dayes, 19, were sentenced to four and three years respectively.

The judge said he would not be making a recommendation for their deportation, but the final decision lay with the Home Office.

Two of Rease's accomplices, addicts Wayne Coxon and Rebecca Turner, who acted as "doorkeepers", were jailed in July. Turner, who was 22, hanged herself in prison 24 hours later.

Another gang henchman, Cecil Curry, 40, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison in February.

Updated: 10:55 Friday, December 10, 2004