A female relative of Carlisle murder gang members Carol and Coral Edgar has been sentenced for drugs supply crimes unearthed after she was also arrested during the police probe into Lee McKnight’s killing.
Janice Edgar, now 41, was detained on the evening of July 24, 2020, by officers who also arrested her elder sister Carol, niece Coral and murder plot leader Jamie Davison.
Hours earlier Mr McKnight’s badly beaten body was found in the river Caldew. He was subjected to brutal violence inside a city house before being transported across the city and dumped in the water while barely alive.
Last week, Coral Edgar, Carol Edgar, Davison and three other men were convicted of murdering Mr McKnight, and await sentence. Janice Edgar, meantime, was due to stand trial, separately, on an assisting offender charge brought in connection with her alleged involvement in the murder. But on Friday the prosecution offered no evidence on that allegation.
However, Edgar, previously of Dale End Road, Carlisle, was present at the city’s court over a video link from custody today. She was sentenced after admitting seven drugs crimes — two involving class A supply and five of making illegal substance supply offers.
A small amount of heroin, “in an unusual weight and concealed internally” had been recovered from Edgar along with a phone “plainly used as a tool of this particular drugs trade”, said prosecutor Tim Evans.
He added: “The totality of the evidence is the phone messages.” These revealed that during a period of several weeks last summer, Edgar supplied heroin to one user and made unlawful offers to deal class A and C substances to others.
She told one: “I can get any amount next week.” The court heard Edgar’s criminal record featured previous drugs supply offending. She had been addicted to heroin for more than half her life, since the age of 18, and had an “extremely troubled history”, culminating in the death of her fiancée on July 17 last year.
“This was supply of drugs that she was addicted to,” said her lawyer, Mark Shepherd.
Noting there was significant personal mitigation and good progress while remanded in custody since last July, Recorder David Temkin QC imposed 24 months’ immediate imprisonment.
Edgar would be released from custody within a short space of time, he observed, also saying: “As you know more than most, Janice Edgar, drugs can wreak havoc on individuals and communities.”
