Drugs couple not too middle-class for jail, rules judge
A MIDDLE-CLASS couple who sold cocaine to their circle of friends have been jailed after a judge warned that having good jobs did not grant them ‘special’ status.
Law firm worker Jordan Heeley, 31, and his girlfriend Alexandra Ditcham, 28, who was training to become a social worker, were on course to make £60,000 a year in illicit sales to their dinner party set before being caught.
They had run their operation from Heeley’s apartment in a grade II-listed former Methodist Sunday school build- ing in the hope of making money on top of their salaries and to help fund Ditcham’s university studies, a court heard.
They earned £13,000 in profit in just ten weeks by supplying friends who would use the cocaine at social gatherings.
After the couple admitted drug dealing, their lawyers urged a judge to impose suspended sentences, producing 23 glowing testimonials from fellow professionals calling for clemency.
However, Judge Steven Everett gave them 28 months each, telling them: ‘You are not special people.’
He said some young people had a ‘devil-may-care’ attitude to cocaine. He added: ‘They might say, “It’s just drugs, lots of us do it, therefore it’s not that serious” but in actual fact it is just the reverse. You were selling a dangerous drug. I see people who take cocaine, steal, rob and burgle just to fund their addiction for this terrible drug.’
Judge Everett said the couple knew that cocaine was responsible for ‘a huge problem in our society’. Saying he took ‘a seri2021 ous view’ of their actions, he added: ‘It was not to fund an addiction or pay off debts, you wanted more money. You are not special people. You are two people who made the decision to sell this evil drug.’
Police raided the couple’s two-bedroom apartment in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in April after being tipped off about ‘drug activity’ there, prosecutor Peter Hussey told Chester Crown Court.
Heeley was found by a kitchen worktop with empty snap bags and a digital scale. Details of drug deals starting at £20 were found on the couple’s phones.
The flat was used to ‘weigh out and bag up the drugs deals’, Mr Hussey said, before the cocaine was supplied among ‘a known circle of contacts’.
Heeley and Ditcham both pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cocaine and money laundering.
Sentencing the couple, Judge Everett said: ‘Whatever your background, whoever you are, if you sell this evil drug you can expect to go to prison and that is where you are going.’
‘You are not special people’