By Six more people jailed for £1.4m Grimsby drugs conspiracy
Six more members of an organised crime group bringing heroin and crack cocaine into Grimsby have been jailed following a lengthy investigation into county lines drug dealing.
Five other members were sentenced in June.
Sentences for all 11 add up to more than 56 years behind bars.
The ringleaders behind the drugs operation were based in Merseyside and Cheshire, transporting £1.38 million of heroin and crack cocaine into Grimsby over an 18-month period and then using local people as well as some from outside the Humberside Police area to sell the drugs.
Detective Sergeant Darren Gray said: “This investigation has been incredibly complex and multi–faceted.
“Enquiries began towards the latter end of 2017, when an arrest was made for an unrelated burglary in the Merseyside area and the offender’s mobile phone was seized and digitally and forensically examined, with messages indicating he was involved in the supply of class A drugs.
“From this time, both overt and covert action has taken place with extensive enquiries carried out as part of the investigation, which ultimately led to the simultaneous execution of three warrants on Thursday, March 21 last year in Grimsby, Liverpool and Warrington, which resulted in the arrests of the ringleaders.”
Arrested in Liverpool, Leslie Aytoun, 49, ran the operation, taking calls from drug users in Grimsby and directing them where to go to pick up heroin or crack cocaine.
Aytoun was charged with two counts of Conspiracy to supply Class A controlled drugs – one for heroin and one for crack cocaine – between September 2017 and March 2019. She pleaded guilty at an earlier court hearing and has now been sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Also arrested and charged with the same offences were her son Scott Hendry, 27, who controlled the local and non-local drug runners in Grimsby and Andres Vassou, 30, of Stoneycroft, who was the transportation to resupply the drugs, travelling between Liverpool and Grimsby by car and train.
Hendry was sentenced to 14-years in prison and Vassou was sentenced to eight years in prison in June.
Further warrants were later carried out and Trevor Willoughby, 38, and Lisa Michaelson, 35, both of Wintringham Road, Grimsby, pleaded guilty at an earlier court hearing to permitting their premises to be used for the purpose of class A drug supply. They have now both been sentenced to 14 months each in prison.
Entering a guilty plea to conspiracy to supply class A drugs between September 2017 and March 2019, and also threatening unlawful violence towards another in August 2019 at an earlier court hearing, Craig Owen, 32, of Overton Court, Barton, has now been sentenced to three-years and nine-months behind bars.
From Hull, Jordan West, 27, and Korban Price, 20, of NFA, both also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class A drugs between September 2017 and March 2019. West has now been sentenced to two years and three months in prison. Sentencing for Price has been deferred to a later date.
From the Cheshire force area, Dean Hall, 25, of Runcorn, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class A drugs between September 2017 and March 2019, and has now been sentenced to eight-months in prison.
Also from the Cheshire force area, Jamie Shaw, also known as Jamie Blythe, 23, of Runcorn, along with two men from the Merseyside force area, Lee Healey, also known as Lee Blackburn, 33, of Liverpool and Reece Navarro, 21, of Liverpool, were all charged with conspiracy to supply class A drugs between September 2017 and March 2019.
All three were sentenced alongside Hendry and Vassou in June. Healey to nine years, Navarro to two-years and eight months and Shaw to two-years and 11-months in prison.
Pictured top: The six most recently sentenced.
Top row, left to right – Jordan West, Leslie Aytoun, Craig Owen
Bottom row, left to right – Lisa Michaelson, Trevor Willoughby, Dean Hall
Pictured bottom:
Top row, left to right – Scott Hendry, Andres Vassou
Bottom row, left to right – Jamie Shaw, Reece Navarro, Lee Healey
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