A TEENAGER has become the 10th person to be punished for playing a “significant” role in a massive drug dealing operation in Bolton.
Christy Gorman, aged 19, of Leverhulme Avenue, Great Lever, was sentenced to four years and four months in a young offenders' institution at Bolton Crown Court yesterday.
He had pleaded guilty to 11 counts of supplying heroin and cocaine last March and April and two counts of possessing the class A drugs with intent to supply.
It followed the jailing of nine drug dealers on Wednesday — Daniel Dawson, Barry Griffin, Trevor Hurst, Richard Yates, Gareth Llewellyn, Lee Kinsella, David Johnson, Dean Goodwin and Emma Lee — who were all involved in the operation and uncovered by the police’s undercover Operation Maxima.
Gorman’s sentence reflected the high number of drug dealing offences and the fact that when police raided his house in December they found more than seven grams of heroin, 20 grams of cocaine, digital scales plus £460 in cash.
Andrew Mackintosh, prosecuting, said officers reached Gorman by calling a specific phone number, known as the “Morgan line”, and were told to meet him on various occasions at different locations where he supplied them with heroin and crack cocaine.
His defence barrister, Nick Ross, said Gorman had used cannabis since the age of 11 and had run up a debt with his supplier which he was trying to pay off by dealing.
He added: “This is what happens when you involve yourself in the murky world of drug dealers.”
Sentencing, Judge Elliot Knopf said: “You played a significant role in this operation. Unlike many of the people that came before me on Wednesday you have not dabbled in class A drugs and that makes the matter all the more worrying.
“You succumbed to the temptation of making easy money — eight or nine months later it had developed beyond that.”
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