Drugs den dealer jailed
JON MACPHERSON
ADRUG dealer who supplied crack cocaine, heroin and cannabis from his ‘drugs den’ home has been jailed.
Patrick Connolly sent thousands of ‘bulk advertising messages’ to users across Accrington and also grew cannabis in one of his bedroom’s, a court heard.
Police raided the 47-year-old’s home on Blackburn Road in Accrington on June 27 last year.
Prosecutor David Clarke told the court how they found £1,860 worth of cannabis, a ‘significant number’ of digital scales, a notebook with ‘tick lists’ and a number of mobile phones.
Analysis of one phone revealed a ‘significant number of drug related messages’ including around 1,000 for crack cocaine and heroin, 800 for cannabis and 1,500 more where the type of drug could not be determined.
Mr Clarke said the cannabis messages were sent over a nine-month period between September 2016 and June 2017 while the 1,000 class A drug messages were made between April and June 2017.
When Connolly was first interviewed by police he denied dealing drugs and said the tick lists were not his.
The defendant accepted buying £100 worth of heroin and £140 worth of cannabis every week and receiving drug request messages, however he claimed to ‘always say no and gave them somebody else’s number’.
Connolly was inter- viewed five weeks later after his mobile phones were analysed and gave ‘no comment’ answers to all questions.
Mr Clarke said: “This is a clearly very well established enterprise and the defendant played a significant role.”
Connolly, now of Firclough Road, Accrington, pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of heroin, crack cocaine and cannabis, producing cannabis and possession with intent to supply cannabis.
He was jailed for a total of 40 months.
Sentencing, Judge Nicholas Barker said: “Your enterprise was not one which was netting you great wealth.
“But that’s only part of what is deeply objectionable about the supply of drugs.
“The other side of it is the damage, as you know being a user, which those drugs do to society and individuals.
“This was no small enterprise by you. Over 1,000 messages relating to heroin and crack cocaine were recovered from just that short period.”