Desperate Leeds dealers tried to get rid of drugs as police pounced

Barry Riley and Vincent Waters were seen by officers acting suspiciously in a 2008-plate Ford Focus in Leeds on My 24, and were talking to a lone female who approached their car to buy drugs.

With Riley behind the wheel, the police then moved to block the car, with one officer grabbing the driver who tried to throw a foil wrap inside the vehicle. Waters, grabbed by a second officer, then tried to throw away a carrier bag.

Prosecuting at Leeds Crown Court, Robert Galley said that after both were removed from the Focus, the police found 13 wraps of crack cocaine, and 28 of heroin. Both defendants also had a wrap of cocaine on them, while Waters had £150 in cash.

In addition, they found a list of orders and money owed from addicts, while their mobile phones showed further evidence of dealing with messages of requests for deals of “white” and “brown” (cocaine and heroin).

Riley gave a prepared statement during his police interview, with Waters largely giving no comments.

Both admitted dealing in Class A drugs. Waters, age 44, of Fillingfir Walk, West Park, has a previous conviction for dealing from 1997, and was jailed in 2002 for seven years for robbery.

Mitigating, George Hazel-Owram said Waters realised a jail sentence was “inevitable”. After his 2002 conviction, he said Waters had largely stayed out of trouble, but after the death of his sister had “relapsed” into drugs.

Riley, age 41, of Iveson Drive, Lawnswood, has 62 convictions for 152 offences. Mitigating, Rhianydd Clement said that the father-of-five also had drug issues.

She said: “His greatest mitigation is his early guilty pleas. He tells me he has been a heavy drug user for 10 years now, and fell in with the wrong crowd. He realises the seriousness of the offences he is involved in.”

Judge Christopher Batty jailed the pair for 33 months each, and said: “You were both living a hand-to-mouth existence, but by working for others you must have been aware of the scale of the operation.”