THREE young West Cumbria men who played roles as two separate criminal supply chains were set up to peddle illegal drugs have been handed prison sentences totalling more than a decade.
Carlisle Crown Court heard today how Nathan Dixon, 22, orchestrated the dealing of class A ecstasy and class B ketamine during a three-month period in 2018, while Dylan John Rickerby 24, arranged the supply of cocaine over several weeks in the same year.
One common thread in the two independent illegal operations was 20-year-old Aaron Mitchell Telford, then aged 18.
Little by way of illicit substances were recovered by police who gained a crucial breakthrough when officers executed a warrant at Telford’s Lincoln Road home in Whitehaven in July, 2018, before rounding up the trio.
They seized a phone from Telford with visible WhatsApp notifications clearly linked to illegal drugs supply. It took 45 days to properly unlock that device, which was then examined. “That analysis revealed a drugs trafficking link to both Nathan Dixon and Dylan Rickerby,” said prosecutor Julian Goode, who revealed Telford had effectively been separately used by both men as a drugs “runner”,
Dixon, of High Road, Thornhill, Egremont, and Telford admitted conspiracy to supply both ecstasy and ketamine, Telford also admitting conspiracy to supply cocaine and cannabis possession. Rickerby, of Grasmere Avenue, Workington, admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine.
Sentencing the men this afternoon (THURS), Judge Nicholas Barker said of the significant dual supply chain enterprise: “It now dates back to 2018 when the police came upon you, Telford, leading to the recovery of your mobile phone which, like peeling back layers of paper upon examination, led the police to you, Dixon, and you, Rickerby.”
Dixon was jailed for 52 months and Rickerby for 34 months, while Telford was handed a three-year young offenders’ institution term.
