A Carlisle heroin dealer has finally been punished for his role in a county lines supply plot — several months after he failed to attend the initial sentencing hearing.
In mid-August, a warrant was issued for the arrest of 34-year-old Christopher Cook at the city’s crown court. Cook, previously of Briar Bank, Carlisle, had been due to learn his fate as one of three people who admitted conspiracy to supply heroin between January 1 and late April of 2022.
During that four-month period, the class A drug was trafficked from Merseyside to north Cumbria for sale to street users. It was, said prosecutor Tim Evans, a classic county lines conspiracy.
But this was dismantled by detectives after 38-year-old Merseyside man David Ball was arrested at Carlisle Railway Station. He had concealed two ounces of heroin in his backside.
During the police investigation, mobile phones were seized, analysed and showed the conspiracy involved Ball, Cook, and 58-year-old Fiona Barnard.
Ball had made seven trips from Merseyside to Carlisle. His visits coincided with Cook sending out multiple text bombs to scores of recipients advertising illegal wares for sale. “Got that strong in again ppl,” read one. Others stated “bk on”, “up n about” and “back on the road”.
Both Ball and Cook — the Carlisle sales end of the plot — were offered accommodation firstly by 63-year-old Deborah Hunt and then by Barnard, who transferred cash to Ball.
Ball, of Aylton Road, Liverpool, was jailed for 44 months and Barnard, of Seatoller Close, Carlisle, for 42 months. Hunt was handed a suspended jail term after she admitted allowing her premises to be used for drug supply, in March 2022.
At the crown court today, Cook’s barrister Andrew Evans said he had failed to attend the original sentencing hearing at a time when he was still in the grip of a £50 to £60-a-day heroin addiction which developed after he had revisited childhood trauma. He was homeless and sofa-surfing.
“He felt it was hopeless,” said Mr Evans. “The thought of being at court and being given the longest custodial sentence of his life was too much to deal with.”
Judge Nicholas Barker said of Cook’s role in the plot: “It involved you arranging and managing the onwards supply of that heroin to users here in Carlisle and the area.”
Cook received a 44-month prison sentence with 14 days tacked on, consecutively, for failing to attend the original hearing.
