Drug dealer caught after 120mph A55 car chase is spared jail
A MAN found with drugs and drug related items after a high speed chase along the A55 was spared jail.
Jack Rod Sweeney was the front seat passenger in the Astra car ‘boxed in’ by police vehicles at Llandudno Junction after a 12-mile pursuit in which the car reached speeds of up to 120mph.
The 21-year-old, of Stockport, Greater Manchester, admitted charges of being concerned in the supply of cocaine and cannabis when he appeared at Mold Crown Court.
He denied being involved in taking the vehicle without permission.
Suspending the two-yearjail term for a similar period, Judge Niclas Parry said: “This is a bad case of supplying up and down the Expressway, the corridor into North Wales from the north west of England where significant profits are made and that’s caused untold misery in North Wales. It’s clear from the mobile messages that you were dealing significant amounts of drugs.”
Sweeney must also carry out 250 hours of unpaid work and attend 20 days of rehabilitation activity and 35 sessions of a Thinking Skills programme.
Defence counsel Simon Killeen accepted the offences crossed the custody threshold but urged the court to impose a sentence that avoided jail.
He noted Sweeney had served a prison sentence since the offences were committed last year and had engaged well since with the
Probation Service.
Simon Rogers, prosecuting, said police saw the vehicle at Bangor on June 18 last year and had signalled it to stop but it made off at speed.
The driver, Joseph James Gregory, 21, also from Stockport, almost crashed into a van at a roundabout and tried to intimidate other motorists by forcing them out of the way. Once stopped the vehicle was searched and drugs were found in the vehicle along with scales and details of buyers.
Officers seized Sweeney’s phone and found messages indicative of drugs supply from October 2018.
Mr Rogers added Gregory had admitted charges of dangerous driving and aggravated vehicle taking and had already been sentenced by a judge at Manchester.