Schoolchildren in Brighton and Hove being targeted by heroin gangs to sell drugs

Detectives who have arrested 50 dealers operating in the city said they were aware of gangs approaching youngsters as young as 12 with no criminal background and offering them hundreds of pounds to sell Class A drugs.

The news comes after Brighton's organised crime investigation team saw the last members of a prolific drug drug network jailed - including a 16-year-old boy.

Detective Sergeant Julian Deans said the 16-year-old was the youngest person arrested as part of Operation Cooden, but that they were convinced that younger children were being corrupted into lives of criminality and had become indebted to dealers.

The teenager - who cannot be named for legal reasons - along with Harry Conain, 20, of Lynton Road, London, were found carrying 116 wraps of crack cocaine and 88 wraps of heroin in Madeira Place, close to Brighton seafront, on November 19 last year.

Teenagers and vulnerable drug-users are used as runners by the gangs to make street level deals operated by ringleaders answering phone calls for orders in London.

Teams of plain clothed Brighton detectives followed street level runners, monitored their phones and cell site data and identified their vehicles to target higher level gang members.

One network the team has targeted is thought to have been directly responsible for the deaths of two people from heroin last year.

Det Sgt Deans said: "There is so much drugs out there, but we are targetting the ones causing our city and residents the most harm.

"If the gangs send 20 year old black lads from London down to sell drugs here they stand out, so what they are doing is recruiting kids who are only 12 or 13 years old and not known to the police and asking them if they want to earn £200 then they give them £2,000 worth of heroin or crack.

"Because they have never been in trouble before they are a lot less likely to get arrested. They are vulnerable.

"But when they do get arrested then they are in debt to a London gang.

"If they go to prison they have to repay that debt when they get out and their problems escalate."

Det Sgt Deans said he could not say for certain how many children were being involved in high level drug dealing in Brighton and Hove but said it was - "certainly a few"

"These are not the people we should be targetting. But if we are on duty and see a kid we think is selling drugs and look 13 or 14 we are not going to walk away.

"They are in a vulnerable position and we have a duty of care. Social services need to be involved."

IN 10 YEARS POLICE HAVE ARRESTED 1,000 DEALERS

A DRUG dealer stands waving a huge knife around casually outside a block of flats in broad daylight in Brighton.

Damien George, 20, was watched by officers as part of a seven-month police operation.

During the time police were watching, the gang’s every move, two heroin users in the city died from overdoses due to the drugs being peddled.

Detective Sergeant Julian Deans recalled how he heard one of his colleagues over the radio saying he saw a “glint of something metal”.

“My heart tripped,” said Det Sgt Deans. “I asked are you talking a gun or a knife? You have to make a tactical decision of what to do with news like that.

“You consider what would happen if a member of the public came up.

“Luckily it was a knife not a gun and there were no members of the public around so we were able to sit on that evidence and use it to bring them down.”

George was acting as a middleman – restocking lower level dealers’ supplies as he was caught on covert cameras in Thames Close, Brighton. His brazen approach of waving the large knife around in broad daylight was typical of the dealers targeted by Sussex Police’s Operation Cooden.

Det Sgt Deans said the gangs had left swathes of Brighton and Hove intimidating areas to live. 

He said the city did not suffer turf wars between gangs in the ways some other cities did but said some areas still had big problems with high drug use.

He said: “Vulnerable addicts will often agree to dealers using their flats in exchange for their couple of bags of heroin a day.

“When they realise it is not quite how they imagined it, it can be almost impossible to get them out.”

George, 20, of South Park Drive, Ilford, Essex was the gang’s “right hand man” and was later arrested entering Brighton on the A23 in possession of an imitation hand gun. 

Ringleader Remy Douieb, 22, of Stanford Avenue, Hassocks, would hold deal phones.

Drug users would call the “Ricky line” and Douieb would then direct local runners to meet them with drugs.

Last week a further five men and a teenage boy were sentenced for their parts in the Teflon drug network, bringing the total number of dealers brought to justice by the John Street-based organised crime investigation team to more than 50.

Operation Cooden targeted the ringleaders for the networks which supplied the heroin directly responsible for the deaths of two people.

Inquests found that Dennis Walsh, 48, who died in Chalky Road, Portslade, in November 2015 and Madeleine Stokes, 20, who died in Ovingdean in January, had both overdosed.

Judge Shani Barnes promised that Mr Walsh and Miss Stokes “will not be forgotten” and condemned the gang’s “prolific, callous and brazen drug dealing”.

But Det Sgt Deans said their deaths were just the tip of the iceberg for the harm caused by heroin in the city.

His team is involved in investigating every heroin death in the city because they know all the dealers.

He said that the purity of heroin in the city was about 12 to 15 per cent five years ago but nearer 30 per cent to 40 per cent at the moment. “That has an effect on heroin deaths,” he said.

“A lot of the people arrested as part of Operation Cooden have been at the street level – heroin addicts selling drugs to fund their habits. These are people that need treatment.

“We have been using them to try to identify the higher levels and stop them.

“In 10 years we have arrested in excess of 1,000 drug dealers who will serve prison terms of 400 to 500 years. 

“There are still gangs and dealers out there but I still firmly believe we are doing the right thing.

“It is really difficult to quantify how many gangs and dealers are still out there and how big a chunk of the market this is but I think it makes a big difference.”

He said that the gangs were operating businesses – aimed at making profits. 

So gangs would target other towns with softer policing if they could make easier money.

If a police officer stops someone who he thinks is in possession of drugs, the police have powers to perform a search. 

“Nine times out of 10 the officer will pat them down and send them on their way,” Det Sgt Deans said.

“But the first thing that guy does is call up his mates and say come down to Brighton they’re a soft touch.

“When you call their bluff and we have had cases where we have charged people with possession with intent to supply whilst they still had drugs hidden inside them then you send a message.”

STREETS A SAFER PLACE AFTER CONVICTIONS

OPERATION Cooden was a plainclothed operation that targeted heroin and crack cocaine dealers in Brighton and Hove between June and December 2015, resulting in more than 50 arrests.

Nine of the most prolific and violent dealers targeted by the Organised Crime Investigation Team (OCIT) at Brighton Police Station have been jailed for more than 28 years for their part in a drug dealing operation. 

Ringleader of the “Ricky” line Remy Douieb, 22, of Stanford Avenue, Hassocks, was sentenced to six years. He held the phones drug users called with orders and directed runners to meet them. He was deemed to be the leader of the network. 

His right hand man was Damien George, 20, of South Park Drive, Ilford, Essex. 

After originally being jailed in June for five years and eight months, his sentence was increased for being unduly lenient by the Court of Appeal to seven years and eight months. 

Runners Scott Collins, 37, of Terminus Road, Brighton; Geoffrey Momoh, 24, of Hadley Grange, Harlow, Essex; Dean Temple, 38, of Sillwood Street, Brighton; and Sam Povall, 31, of no fixed address, were also handed custodial sentences for their parts in the operation. 

Charlie Magrino, who was 17 at the time of the offending, of Haringey, North London, was sentenced to two years, suspended for two years.

A 16-year-old boy and Harry Conain, 20, of Lynton Road, London, were stopped by officers in Madeira Place Brighton and found in possession of more than £2,000 worth of heroin and crack in November last year. 

Their arrests led detectives to Thomas Beaumont, 21, of Heath End Road, Bexley, Kent, and Darren O’Donnell, 34, of Aspley Court, Crawley – who were jailed last week for three years eight months and 20 months respectively. 

Judge Shani Barnes praised took the unusual step of praising the work of the OCIT’s work team. She described it as “the hallmark of an excellent operation borne out in the guilty pleas of the defendants”. 

She added: All these defendants pleaded guilty at a very early stage because of the weight of evidence placed upon them by you. “As the resident judge and a local resident, I say thank you and commend this team. I don’t often commend but this operation is one that I am in awe of.”