A Cumbria drugs ring leader and his deputy have been warned they face extra time behind bars if they fail to hand back tens of thousands of pounds profits they raked in during the illegal enterprise.
Roy Hickman, 37, ran the huge class A substance supply conspiracy for 25 weeks during 2018. Assisted by 27-year-old right-hand man Thomas Terrance Wright, Hickman orchestrated the movement of vast quantities of drugs from their native Merseyside to north Cumbria.
These were then advertised for sale to addicts through “text bombs” during a plot which also saw Carlisle area residents recruited to provide safe houses for storage — some occupied by children — and phone numbers; to deal the drugs.
After police smashed the county lines conspiracy which was hailed as Cumbria’s largest, 16 crooks were sentenced by a judge who handed down jail terms totalling nearly 90 years. Hickman was locked up for 14 years four months, and Wright for 10-and-a-half years.
Financial investigators also set about clawing back money made by the gang members. Three were made the subject of confiscation orders at Carlisle Crown Court last week.
And today, further orders were handed down to Hickman and Wright, who appeared in court over video links from custody. The duo were found to have benefited from the criminal conduct to the tune of £265,616 and £260,516, respectively.
Both claimed they had no available assets to surrender but, giving evidence to Judge Nicholas Barker, Hickman and Wright revealed they were paid weekly “wages” of £2,000 and £1,500, respectively, during the plot.
As a result, Judge Barker found Hickman’s available assets over the 25 weeks amounted to £50,000. Wright’s figure, meanwhile, was assessed as £39,150 and also included £1,650 seized from him on an earlier occasion.
Judge Barker told the men they had three months to pay back these ill-gotten gains or face further prison time in default — Hickman 18 months and Wright 15 months.
After the confiscation orders were formally made, Hickman responded by raising his middle finger, while Wright laughed and called the proceedings a “joke”.
