Heroin 'Scousers' blamed for 18 deaths (From The Argus)

Heroin 'Scousers' blamed for 18 deaths

9:39am Tuesday 21st October 2008

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A gang of drug dealers whose super-strength black heroin killed up to 18 people has been jailed for a total of 24 years.

Four men known as “The Scousers” because of their Merseyside roots peddled a high-purity type of heroin in parks and on street corners in Hove.

For the first few months of this year addicts played Russian roulette as the drugs – which turned black when prepared for injection because of their strength – led to a string of deaths from accidental overdoses.

By May there had been 18 fatal overdoses in Brighton and Hove – but the mortality rate dropped away to fewer than two a month after police collared the gang.

John Lee was jailed for ten years and Karl Freeman for nine yesterday after admitting conspiracy to supply a class A drug.

They came to the city to corner the drugs market in Hove, using dealers Darren Hogarth and George Wood to sell heroin and crack in Palmeira Square, Adelaide Crescent, Hove Recreation Ground, Old Shoreham Road and St Ann’s Well Gardens.

As the months passed, the death toll mounted.

Police intelligence showed wraps of heroin up to 70% pure were being sold on the street – much stronger than the 50% purity or less that most addicts were used to. Among the 18 people to die was 22-year-old Sam Nolan, who overdosed at a flat in Goldstone Villas, Hove, on January 3.

At her inquest Brighton and Hove Coroner Veronica Hamilton-Deeley described taking heroin as like “Russian roulette” because of the varying strengths available on the street.

Detective Chief Inspector Ian Pollard, head of Brighton and Hove CID, described the gang as an “organised criminal network”.

He said: “There is no doubt in my mind that there is a direct correlation in this dramatic reduction of heroinrelated deaths and the fact these men are no longer on our city’s streets.

“People who come to Brighton and Hove to commit crime can expect to be dealt with robustly by police and the courts, as reflected in these sentences.

“They are not welcome in our city and they will not be tolerated.”

When police swooped in May to arrest “The Scousers”, Freeman had nearly £1,000 in cash on him.

In the next four months there were only six heroin-related deaths in the city. Lee, 35, of Bradewell Close, Liverpool, and Freeman, 30, of no fixed address, appeared at Lewes Crown Court yesterday.

Hogarth, 38, of Stapley Road, Hove, and Wood, 41, of Seymour Street, Birkenhead, were each jailed for two and a half years for supplying heroin and crack cocaine.

Hogarth was also handed an extra 11 months in prison for breaching a suspended sentence.

Drugs deaths in Brighton and Hove peaked at 67 in 2000.

By 2005, when 51 people died, the city’s mortality rate had outstripped the rest of the country for three years in a row.

Police launched Operation Reduction, a strategy to jail dealers and get users into treatment.

In 2006 the city managed to shake off the unwanted tag of drugs deaths capital of Britain, with fatalities falling to 38.

Yesterday’s court hearing was the latest example of organised crime gangs from Merseyside targeting Sussex.

Senior detectives believe there are 60 organised gangs from elsewhere in the country, many from Merseyside and London, operating in Sussex.

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