Two 1st-class stamps, a pint of milk... and some cocaine, please
Postmistress dubbed ‘Deirdre the Dealer’ sold drugs from shop
A POSTMISTRESS has been found guilty of selling cocaine out of a village shop.
Deirdre Jenkins, 45, led a double life flogging customers class A drugs along with their milk and stamps.
The mother of two was even nicknamed ‘Deirdre the Dealer’ by some of her regular customers. A court heard she gave up to £3,000-worth of cocaine to users on credit while running a post office and village shop in rural west Wales.
Jenkins sold the drugs to friends and associates who were regulars at the post office.
But she was caught out after refusing to supply any more ‘coke on tick’ to one customer – who then blew the whistle to police. Other villagers living in Parcllyn, near Cardigan, had also told police of their suspicions.
Prosecutor Jim Davis said: ‘Police executed a search warrant following receipt of information from local residents.’
Mr Davis told Swansea Crown Court police found three wraps of cocaine in her handbag and eight grams of the class A drug hidden in a cupboard in her bedroom.
There was also £1,200 in cash in her house which was next to her store and post office.
Mr Davis said an examination of Jenkins’s mobile telephone revealed numerous messages related to drugs deals.
One showed that a single customer owed her £3,000. Mr Davis said: ‘It appeared that Jenkins
‘Three wraps in her handbag’
had become fed up of giving customers cocaine “on tick” and had told some to go to other dealers’. Police were then tipped off about ‘Deirdre the Dealer’ and raided her post office in December 2019.
Jenkins pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply.
Ian Ibrahim, defending, said that she had lost her shop and been declared bankrupt since her arrest. He said the postmistress had started selling drugs after she ‘relapsed back into drug use’ herself. Judge Catherine Richards told Jenkins she ‘enjoyed the status’ of being a drug dealer to her friends.
Judge Richards said anyone dealing in a class A drug such as cocaine deserved to go to prison, partly because of the tremendous harm caused to communities they lived in and dealt in.
But there had been a considerable delay between her arrest and sentencing partly because of the backlog of cases due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Jenkins was handed a two-year suspended jail sentence and ordered to complete a rehabilitation course. Her tiny Stordy DJ Stores has now closed for good with a hand-written sign in the window saying: ‘The store has ceased trading. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.’
A neighbour said: ‘Deirdre ran the shop for a couple of years and was a popular postmistress. It closed overnight and I haven’t seen her since.
‘It’s a shame because we don’t have a shop now, you have to drive a few miles.’
Another local, Mair Davies, said: ‘I had no idea at all... But then when I asked around it seems a lot of people knew about it. You wouldn’t think people in the countryside would be taking cocaine. This is Parcllyn, not Hollywood.’