County lines gang researched "hotspot drug deaths" online - then flooded Scarborough with heroin and crack cocaine

One of the gang members, 25-year-old Jack Gregory, searched online for drug “hotspots” and the “areas of England and Wales with the highest drug deaths (from) heroin and crack”.

Having found that Scarborough and other coastal areas were prime dealing grounds, the gang journeyed from Doncaster to the east coast with multiple packages of “pernicious” and potentially lethal drugs, York Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Tom Jackson said that Ellie Scorer, 24, drove the gang-of-three from Doncaster to the east coast where they booked a room at The Grand Hotel to co-ordinate their drug enterprise.

On February 26, 2022, police were alerted to their nefarious business purely by chance after being called out to an unrelated “welfare check” at an address in the town.

On leaving the address, a police officer spotted a Ford Focus which he followed until it stopped outside a convenience store.

Gregory got out of the vehicle and went inside the shop as the officer radioed for back-up.

Several police vehicles turned up and boxed in the Ford Focus.

They detained three people including Scorer, along with the named gang leader who was in the front passenger seat and a third male.

Gregory was arrested as he came out of the shop.

During a search of the car, officers found 34 grip-seal bags full of high-purity crack cocaine and 45 bags of heroin.

They also found a further nine bags of crack in the footwells.

When officers searched Scorer’s pockets, she said they wouldn’t find anything, but then two phones hidden in the waistband of her jogging bottoms started ringing.

When searching the gang leader, they found more than £644 cash in his jacket pocket.

Scorer claimed the gang leader had handed her the phones as police approached and told her to hide them.

On searching Gregory, they found a wrap of heroin, an iPhone and a key to a room at The Grand Hotel.

Further enquiries revealed that the gang leader had booked a room at the hotel before they made their trip across the county line.

A search of the room unearthed a “large bundle of cash”, worth £2,130, Scorer’s driving licence and a bin bag full of heroin and crack.

Police found more than 23 grammes of crack cocaine with a street value of at least £2,500 and heroin worth about £2,000.

They also found two sets of weighing scales.

During a search of the gang leader’s home in Doncaster, police found 25g of cocaine mixed with Creatine, used as a bulking agent.

Analysis of the iPhone seized from Gregory showed that four days before the gang’s trip to Scarborough, he had searched for “English (drug) hotspots” and “areas of England and Wales with the highest drug deaths (from) heroin and crack”.

These online searches revealed that seaside resorts including Scarborough accounted for more than half of deaths from Class A drug abuse.

On a Nokia phone seized from the gang during the drug bust in Scarborough, there was a message which said: “Get a local lad on the graft with us.”

These messages appeared to have been sent by the gang leader to recruit others in the town.

He also sent out repeated “broadcast messages” to drug users advertising his illicit goods.

One of the messages read: “New man in town. Best of both (drugs) and pure.”

Scorer, Gregory and the gang leader ultimately admitted possessing cocaine and heroin with intent to supply, but only Scorer and Gregory appeared for sentence on Monday, June 11.

Scorer had admitted her part in the drug enterprise on the basis that she was merely their driver.

This basis was ultimately accepted by the prosecution.

Her barrister Daniel Ingham said she had played a “limited” role after being “swept up” in the operation.

Rhianydd Clement, for Gregory, said that her client, who had lately been working as a labourer and part-time at a sandwich shop, had been addicted to crack cocaine and cannabis since his teens and was dealing to feed his habit and pay off drug debts.

Judge Simon Hickey told the defendants they had deliberately targeted a town that was known as a drug “hotspot” and that “sadly, was well known to these courts”.

He said that Scarborough was a “seaside town that is blighted by cocaine and heroin deaths”.

Despite this, Gregory, of Doncaster Road, Tickhill, was given a two-year suspended jail sentence with 200 hours of unpaid work, primarily because he had battled his own addiction, had taken steps to rid himself of his habit and was in employment.

Scorer, of New Park Estate, Stainforth, received an 18-month suspended prison sentence with 20 rehabilitation-activity days.