County Lines drug dealer jailed for selling heroin and cocaine in Scarborough

Gerrard Parkins, 26, from Liverpool, conspired with others to flood the town’s streets with Class A drugs and was found with cash and bank cards worth about £23,000, York Crown Court heard.

Parkins was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail on Tuesday, March 26, consecutive to two recent prison sentences totalling seven years and four months for two similar drug enterprises.

Parkins admitted the ‘new’ matters late last year, but they pre-dated his two previous convictions for drug supply.

Since being arrested for the ‘new’ offences, committed back in 2019, he had already been released from a prison stretch for one of his two previous convictions for similar behaviour.

Following his release from prison following a two-year prison sentence around 2021, Parkins was arrested again for drug-dealing and received a jail sentence of five years and four months in November 2022.

Prosecutor Jonathan Foy said Parkins was one of the “key players” in the drug conspiracy in Scarborough.

He was “the link between Liverpool and (drug-dealing on) the east coast”.

Parkins, of no fixed address, admitted two counts of conspiring to supply Class A drugs and possessing criminal cash and bank cards between January and October 2019.

He conspired with at least seven others, one of whom is yet to be sentenced because he is due to undergo dental surgery and others who have already received prison terms.

Some of his co-conspirators were from Scarborough.

Jonathan Duffy, for Parkins, said the Liverpudlian’s sentence for the ‘new’ offences would have to be reduced by 18 months because of the time he had already served for one of the two previous jail terms.

Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, said he had to have regard for “totality” in sentencing Parkins as he should have been sentenced for all matters at the same time, which would have resulted in a jail sentence of about 12 years.

“That is because you were arrested for (the ‘new’ matters) in May 2019,” added the judge.

Giving Parkins credit for his guilty plea to the ‘new’ matters and considering the time he had already served for the previous matter, plus the delay in the case reaching court, he sentenced the Merseyside dealer to another two years and eight months in prison, to run consecutively to his current sentence.