Eight drug men jailed
Eight drug dealers were jailed for a total of 26 and a half years at Kingston Crown Court on Friday, after being secretly filmed selling crack cocaine and heroin on the Fairfield.
Police officers posed as customers, and secret video cameras were installed in the town centre park as part of a huge covert operation codenamed Grand National, which targeted drug dealers in the Fairfield, between September 16 and October 8 last year.
Kingston men Tobias Tetteh, Stuart Hazell and Marlon Peden were among the eight sent to jail on Friday afternoon
Tetteh, 28, of Crane's Park, was sentenced to three years and four months for 13 counts of supplying class A drugs. Hazell, 27, of Dale Court, got two years and 10 months for one count of supplying crack cocaine, and Peden, 32, of Winery Lane, was sentenced to four years and six months for conspiracy to supply crack cocaine.
David McFarlane, 32, and Andre Ellis, 26, both of no fixed abode, were given three years each. They were filmed supplying crack and heroin with Peden, and Kwane McDonald, 31, of Thornton Heath, who was sentenced to four years.
Another two men, Devon Burke, 46, of Croydon, and Dean Knappett, 31, of no fixed abode, were sentenced to three years and two years 10 months respectively.
Hundreds of rocks of crack cocaine and wraps of heroin, with an estimated street value of £2,000, were seized during operation Grand National.
The men stored wraps of the drugs in their mouths, down their underwear, and Burke even stored supplies of drugs inside his bicycle seat.
McFarlane, McDonald and Ellis, who all came to Britain from Jamacia, will be deported after completing their sentences.
Some in the court were surprised at the leniency of the sentences, but Kingston Police insisted justice had been done.
Borough Commander Jeffrey Brathwaite said: "Drug dealers are responsible for creating much misery and crime in Kingston. The fear of crime needs to be transferred back to the dealers."
Detective Sergeant Will Young, who led the operation, said after the sentencing: "It is good to reinforce the message if people deal drugs we will find them and we will lock them up."
