Drugs supply trial to enter another week

The case of eight men charged with supplying drugs across the North East will go into another week as the jury continues to deliberate.

On Thursday, following summing up by Judge Peter Armstrong at Teesside Crown Court, the jury went out at lunchtime to consider their verdicts following several weeks of evidence from the trial, which began in November last year.

The jury returned yesterday to continue their deliberations.

But after still not reaching any decisions, the judge released them for the weekend to return on Monday at 11am.

All eight of the men, who are from Hartlepool, South Shields, and East Durham, deny conspiring to supply cocaine between August 18, 2015, and July 26, 2016.

The defendants are: Alan Baines, 33, of Meryl Gardens, Hartlepool, Graham Wilding, 33, of Warren Road, Hartlepool, Gary Mitchell, 42, of Pinedale Drive, South Hetton; Stephen Horner, 24, of Frederick Terrace, South Hetton; Christopher Hickson, 35, of Gloucester Terrace, Haswell; Darren Gates, 49, of Chaucer Avenue, Biddick Hall, South Shields; Dean Pringle, 34, of Little Eden, Peterlee, and an eighth man, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The court had previously heard the arrests followed a Durham Constabulary investigation, code-named Operation Ebony, which uncovered large scale operations of the illegal enterprise.

The jury had been told that two consignments of drugs, valued at more than £100,000, had been seized.