Jail for drugs dealer found asleep in car with heroin
A MAN who fell asleep in his car after becoming “comatose” on New Year’s Eve was found to have drugs worth more than £50,000.
Gethin Bishop was one of three men sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court for their part in bringing drugs to the streets of Cardiff from an crime gang in Liverpool.
Sentencing on Friday, Judge William Gaskell said: “This was a serious quantity of drugs and represented a serious introduction of drugs into South Wales.”
The court heard police were called to the YMCA on The Walk in Roath in May 2015, because Ian Hughes was reported as being disruptive and abusive to reception staff.
Officers searched him and found two bags containing about 40g of amphetamine, valued at up to £175, with one bag split as if to be sold on.
The bags were examined and found to contain the fingerprints of Anthony Lynch, leading officers to search his home in Pentwyn in July 2015.
Prosecutor Tim Naylor said officers found a bag containing powder in his downstairs bathroom.
Analysis revealed about 2g of high-purity cocaine, as well as about 50g of powdered paracetamol and caffeine, used to mix the drugs, estimated to be worth more than £500.
Officers also found amphetamine in the garden and £660 worth of bank notes in the bedroom.
Lynch was granted bail and his home was searched again in October 2015, when diazepam tablets and steroids were found.
The court heard three months later, on New Year’s Day, a police officer saw a Vauxhall Corsa on Dyffryn Road with driver Gethin Bishop asleep inside.
He searched the driver and found Ecstasy in his jeans pocket, plus 10 morphine tablets, as well as nearly 280g of heroin, worth more than £15,000.
The officer searched his hotel room at the Lincoln House Hotel on Cathedral Road and found crack cocaine, heroin and ecstasy.
Mr Naylor said the total amount found in the car and the hotel room was about 650g of heroin, worth more than £36,000, plus nearly 160g of crack cocaine, worth more than £16,000.
The packaging was found to contain Lynch’s fingerprints and officers searched his house again in March, where they found nearly £1,500 in cash, plus more heroin and crack cocaine. Officers seized his phone and found a list of users who owed him money. They also found scales containing traces of cocaine under the kitchen sink.
Lynch, 31, from Heddfan South, admitted being involved in the supply of heroin and crack cocaine, possession with intent to supply cocaine and five counts of possession of Class C.
The prosecutor said he had played a “significant role”, as he was involved with 800g of Class A drugs with a street value of £50,000.
The court heard Lynch had been addicted to drugs for several years and decided to deal to fund his addiction.
Lynch, who used the dealer name Frank, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison.
Bishop, 40, from Longacres in Bridgend – a street dealer – was sentenced for possession with intent to supply heroin, cocaine and Ecstasy.
The court heard he had studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and was a “talented musician”, but had “gone off the rails”.
He was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.
Hughes, 44, from Bryn Celyn Road in Pentwyn, was jailed for 10 months for possession of Class B amphetamine with intent to supply.