Eight defendants have pleaded guilty to county lines drug dealing and bringing children to Brighton to exploit as street runners.
The case is believed to be the first in Sussex in which drug dealers have admitted breaking “modern slavery” laws, having exploited four school-age children.
The gang brought class A drugs from Essex to Brighton over more than two months during the coronavirus pandemic, including while people were told to stay home during the second national lockdown.
They sold at least 8,000 “wraps” of heroin and crack cocaine in Brighton and Hove in that time, with a street value of about £80,000.
These were “conservative estimates”, according to Barnaby Shaw, prosecuting, at Hove Crown Court today (Tuesday 16 May).
The gang operated a phone line known as Hector – or Hector 2 – after a different gang running the original Hector line were arrested as part of a police operation known as Op Bite.
Ten members of the original gang have since been jailed for a total of more than 70 years. To read more, click here and here.
With the revival of the Hector line, Sussex Police set up Op Bite 2, gathered evidence and arrested key members of the new gang.
Five members of that gang pleaded guilty at previous court hearings but three were due to go on trial by jury from today.
Before a jury could be sworn in, though, the remaining three gang members admitted their part in running the Hector line and exploiting children.
Three of the children were from Essex and one came from Wiltshire. The gang recruited them, brought them to Brighton and harboured them while putting them to work.
One was found with a gang member at the Smart Brighton Beach Hotel, above the Walkabout bar, in West Street, Brighton, while gang members also stayed at the Royal Albion Hotel, in Old Steine.
At one point a number of young drug runners were staying with one of the defendants, who is also a drug addict, at her home, just off Portland Road, Hove.
Today, Judge Stephen Mooney said that he would sentence the gang on Thursday 31 August and he warned the three members who were in court that they would be going to prison.
Two of the eight are already in prison for drugs offences and one of them, Thomas Warwick, is believed to be facing a minimum seven years under the “three strikes” rule.
He has been jailed for drugs offences twice before and a seven-year minimum sentence is mandatory for drug dealers facing prison for a third time.
The eight gang members to be sentenced are
- Thomas Warwick, 32, of Prospect Close, Southend, in Essex, and formerly of Stephenson Drive, in nearby Basildon.
- Jayden Henry-Flavien, 31, of Bellhouse Road, Leigh, in Essex, whose address at one hearing was given as Highpoint prison, in Suffolk.
- Gary Goodwin, 23, of Ulfa Court, Eastwood Road, Rayleigh, in Essex.
- Liam Harvey, 25, of Hermitage Drive, Basildon, in Essex.
- Harley Roberts, 25, of Havalon Close, Basildon.
- Cris Donovan, 31, of Richards House, Bishops Hall Road, in Pilgrims Hatch, Brentwood, in Essex.
- Nicola McKenzie, 49, a hairdresser, of Wish Court, Ingram Crescent West, Hove.
- Dean Warrington, 47, of Pamplins, Basildon, in Essex.
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The judge is also expected to be asked to impose “slavery and trafficking prevention orders” (STPOs) aimed at preventing gang members from being able to transport or harbour children in future.
If the orders are imposed and those subject to them drive a child in a car or stay overnight with a child, they would risk being sent to prison.
The eight convictions followed a two-year investigation by the Brighton and Hove Community Investigation Team.
“If the orders are imposed and those subject to them drive a child in a car or stay overnight with a child, they would risk being sent to prison.”
Surely they should be sent to prison anyway for this despicable crime.