A psychology graduate was embroiled in a drugs gang which shipped heroin and cocaine from Liverpool to Chester on an ‘almost daily basis’.
Edge Hill university high-flier Alex Foy, 22, was among two men jailed for their roles in the organised crime syndicate.
Liverpool Crown Court was told how the gang supplied ‘substantial’ street deals of class A drugs to users in Chester over 51 days at the beginning of 2013.
Ian Harris, prosecuting, said: “Police investigations isolated a Chester drugs round where Liverpool criminals travelled to the Chester area on an almost daily basis to supply the drugs.
“With odd exceptions they set out from Liverpool between 9am and 10am and mainly worked in the morning.”
A drug-dealing ‘graft’ phone seized from Foy revealed that 8,168 calls were made or received over an 18-week period between November 2012 and March 2013 - an average of 452 per week.
While some of the calls were made by gang member Paul Edwards to his girlfriend, the court was told that even discounting personal use of the mobile it was “an irresistible inference given the amount of contacts that thousands of wraps must have been supplied”.
Mr Harris said the crime gang was headed by Ruben Carroll, 28, who controlled the supply and directed operations, including transport.
Drugs runner Foy, of Mansell Road, Kensington, was described as an ‘active and enthusiastic’ vendor of drugs from early February until his arrest on March 14 last year.
He was jailed for two years and nine months alongside Neil Barlow, a Chester man who allowed his home in Sycamore Drive to be used the ‘hub’ of the supply chain.
Barlow, who was jailed for three years and four months, was described as a “trusted conspirator who let his premises be used as a safe house to store drugs and also for the sale of heroin and cocaine”.
Julian Nutter, defending Foy, said his client was remorseful and accepted he faced a custodial sentence “regardless of his academic prowess”.
But he warned judge Robert Trevor-Jones: “To put it bluntly if you send him off into the company of others far more criminally sophisticated than he is, that which the public may get when he is released may be the opposite of the desired reason for punishment.”
The judge said Foy had displayed ‘extremely promising’ academic potential.
But he said: “You’re an intelligent man and you must have known what you were getting into.”
Michael Bagley, defending Barlow, 38, said his client was a drug user who was ‘exploited’ by the gang.
Foy and Barlow admitted conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
Carroll, of Olivia Way, Huyton and Edwards, 29, of July Road, Kensington, will be sentenced on July 30.
