DRUGS lord who enjoyed a jet-set lifestyle was last night starting an 11-and-a-half-year jail sentence.

 

 Darlington man Paul Brett was at the head of a well organised empire that tried to flood the area with more than £1m of cocaine. The gang was disrupted after an 18-month undercover operation – the biggest in Durham Police history – culminated in raids last year. Brett, 25, was jailed along with five others from Darlington, Teesside and Merseyside. Detective Chief Superintendent Jane Spraggon said afterwards: “This operation proves no one is untouchable.” Brett’s right-hand man, Mark Dee, 25, was jailed for seven years, while fellow Darlington organiser David Pierce, 41, was jailed for five years. Teesside Crown Court heard that they fixed up deals in Liverpool and arranged for couriers to travel across the Pennines and bring back drugs. In Ronald Bennett’s house in Liverpool, police found an industrial blender, cocaine and a 20-tonne hydraulic press. Market trader Bennett, 57, was the “packager” who Judge Tony Briggs said was crucial to the success of the gang. He was jailed for eight years. Lance Kennedy, 24, from Birkenhead, and Craig Costello, 29, from Middlesbrough, were each jailed for 15 months for money laundering. The pair were caught with nearly £20,000 after police watched Brett hand over a holdall at a McDonald’s car park in Darlington. Brett, a one-time fitness instructor who had never worked during the surveillance and had no bank accounts in the UK, made regular trips abroad. He was pictured in a newspaper flanked by two glamour girls at the opening of a Dubai nightclub and stayed at £800-a-night hotels in Thailand. Dee, a joiner, was said to have been paid only £1,500 for arranging deals. Bennett’s barrister said his client was the one who got his hands the dirtiest. Lawyers for charity fundraiser Kennedy and offshore worker Costello said they were unaware the money was from drug-dealing. Brett, of Yiewsley Drive, Darlington, admitted a fraud charge and converting criminal property and conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. Richard Littler, in mitigation, said he deserved credit for being the first to plead guilty, forcing the others to do so. Bennett, of Fairfax Road, Liverpool, and Dee, of Honeywood Gardens, Darlington, also pleaded guilty to being part of the conspiracy. Pierce, a former amateur boxer and shop-fitter, of Kilmarnock Road, Darlington, was found guilty of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. Tom Mitchell, in mitigation, said: “He falls to the bottom of whatever he finds himself involved with.” Kennedy, of Livingstone Street, Birkenhead, and father-of-three Costello, of St Cuthbert Avenue, Marton, Middlesbrough, admitted conspiracy to transfer criminal property.

Cornwall shooting death men 'worked for IRA drug gang'

 

Two men killed and buried on a remote farm in Cornwall were working for an IRA gang involved in Liverpool's drugs trade, a court has heard. Boxer Brett Flournoy, from Merseyside, and David Griffiths, of Berkshire, were found dead buried in a van at Ross Stone's farm near St Austell in 2011. Murder accused Thomas Haigh, 26, told Truro Crown Court the pair worked for Irish republicans who "ran Liverpool". Mr Haigh and Mr Stone deny murder. The trial continues. 'Self-interest took over' Mr Stone, 28, who admits burying the bodies on his Sunny Corner farm at Trenance Downs, told police he had arrived back at the farm on 16 June to find the bodies of the two men lying on the ground, the jury heard. A badly beaten Mr Haigh was nearby, he said in an interview, and although Mr Haigh did not admit killing them, he told Mr Stone "Dave [Griffiths] wouldn't die". Jurors also heard that both defendants blamed the other for killing the two men, to whom the alleged killers both owed money, in Stone's case £40,000. The dead men were buried with their van on the farm near St Austell Mr Haigh - who went to hide in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, after the killings - told police that Mr Griffiths had beaten him up over a girl he had taken back to the farm. He said he had run off and that the men had still been alive when he did. Prosecuting, Paul Dunkels QC told the jury on the second day of the trial that both men's claims were lies. He said: "When arrested by the police, the alliance between these two men broke down and self-interest took over. "The murders were the result of the joint efforts of these two defendants." The burned bodies of Mr Griffiths, a father-of-three originally from Plymouth, Devon, but living in Bracknell, Berkshire; and Mr Flournoy, a father-of-two from Bebington, in Wirral, Merseyside, were found dumped in the back of a van buried on the farm in July 2011. Mr Haigh, 26, formerly of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, and Mr Stone, both deny two counts of murder.