Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Gang locked up as city cocaine ring smashed
The sentences
kentishgazette@thekmgroup.co.uk MEMBERS of a multi-million pound Canterbury drugs gang have been jailed for a total of 28 years.
The nine-strong gang supplied huge amounts of cocaine across the city before they were brought down by a “painstaking” police investigation.
Drugs with a street value of £6 million, including cocaine with 94% purity, were taken off the streets.
Sentencing eight of the gang at Canterbury Crown Court last Thursday, Judge Nigel Van Der Bijl described the “sophisticated operation” as a “business-like crime run in open daylight”.
The court heard the police investigation began in September 2011 when Lee Phillips, of Prioress Road, Canterbury, was stopped in his van by police.
Finding a bag of cocaine in the glove box and £1,220, officers searched the 30-yearold’s home and found swabbing equipment and weighing scales.
On the same evening Daniel Bridge, 27, and Justin McColl, 31, were stopped in a VW Golf near McColl’s home in Broadstairs, where drugs paraphernalia and £5,000 was seized.
Robert Curtis, 41, of Leighville Drive, Herne Bay, was arrested when his Ford Mondeo was stopped on the Thanet Way the following month and drugs were found stashed under a seat in a plastic bag.
A search of his caravan in Deal and Lamberhurst farm in Dargate uncovered £16,500 and cocaine with an estimated street value of £54,000.
Then in December 2011, police raided nine properties in Herne Bay, Ashford, Chartham, Sturry and Broadstairs.
Drugs, mobile phones, counterfeit cash and weapons including a crossbow were seized.
DC Martin Lacey, from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said:
Lee Phillips, 30, of Prioress Road, Canterbury, was jailed for four years.
Daniel D’Age, 28, St George’s Terrace, Herne Bay, was jailed for eight years.
Daniel Bridge, 27, of Carlton Avenue, Broadstairs, was jailed for three years.
Kieren Mitchell, 30, of Roosevelt Avenue, Chatham, was jailed for five years.
Justin McColl, 31, of Camden Road, Broadstairs, was jailed for four years.
Robert Curtis, 41, of Leighville Drive, Herne Bay, was jailed for four years.
Angela McColl, 52, of Prospect Road, Broadstairs, was given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years.
Aaron Blake, 31, of Tenterden Drive, Canterbury, will be sentenced on Friday, March 22.
All eight defendants had admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine.
Rachel Deal, 30, of Leighville Drive, Herne Bay, was found guilty by a jury of conspiracy to supply cocaine and given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years. “This was a highly-organised criminal network and the people within the network were pocketing thousands by selling to high-end dealers across the east of the county.
“To connect the nine to the drug supply ring took many hours of investigative work in which officers trawled through a huge amount of mobile phone data and other intelligence which had been painstakingly gathered.
“We have been successful in taking millions of pounds worth of drugs off the streets and will continue to relentlessly pursue those intent on profiting from the death and misery caused by illegal drugs.”