the times | Saturday November 14 2020 1GM 25
News
PETER MACDIARMID/LNPA drugs boss who learnt his trade from
dealers living in university halls of resi-
dence has been jailed for nine years
after one of the largest ever county
lines operations.
Michael Emeofa, 22, of Bromley,
south London, headed a network that
flooded Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria,
with heroin and crack cocaine between
March 2018 and January last year.
Police were alerted after the deaths of
14 people in the town between Decem-
ber 2017 and early 2018 from Class A
drugs. Detectives set up an investi-
gation across large parts of the UK, in-
cluding the West Midlands, London,
Leicestershire and Staffordshire, in
which police posed as drug addicts.
Emeofa, known as Sprayz, was ini-
tially a runner for two friends at Central
Lancashire University in Preston, who
ran a county lines enterprise, and set up
his own mobile phone line to take drugs
orders in direct competition.
When in April 2018 police arrested
Daniel Olaloko and Peter Adebayo,
who were later jailed, Emeofa installed
dealers in the town from London and
recruited drug addicts in Barrow to
work on his behalf. His recruits includ-
ed two 17-year-old boys and two 15-
year-old boys, one of whom had been
reported missing from local authority
County lines drug baron
learnt trade from students
accommodation. Emeofa used address-
es in London and Coventry to prepare
significant quantities of drugs for on-
ward supply, Preston crown court was
told. Richard Archer, for the prosecu-
tion, said that undercover officers fol-
lowed the activities of those involved in
“peddling misery” on the streets of the
town by posing as buyers.
Emeofa admitted conspiracy to sup-
ply Class A drugs at an earlier hearing.
David Bentley, in mitigation, said
Emeofa’s mother believed her son had
lost the “positive influence” of his father
who died six years ago.
Emeofa, who grew up in Deptford,
south London, achieved good grades at
a private boarding school in Nigeria
and aspired to seek a university educa-
tion in law and business. Mr Bentley
said: “He is still a young man who can
change the course of his life.”
Judge Graham Knowles, QC, senten-
cing Emeofa, said: “The man running
the line only pays the price if he is
caught and that is why the sentence is
so severe.”
Detective Chief Superintendent
Dean Holden, of Cumbria police, said:
“While the deaths were not directly at-
tributable to Class A drugs... it was that
combination of more Class A drugs,
county lines and more intelligence that
led me to decide on commencing a
dedicated operation to address it.”Charlotte Wace
A driver diverted a quarter of London’s
available police to a futile search for his
car by lying that a toddler was in the
back when it was stolen.
A police helicopter, firearms officers
and units from other forces were draft-
ed in to track the white Audi A3 after
Jamal Thomas, 23, made up the story in
August in an attempt to speed up the
search.
Thomas, of Romford, east London,
maintained his lie for three hours as
local and national media relayed an ur-
gent police appeal until officers unrav-
elled his story after hearing conflicting
or suspicious accounts.
He was jailed for 12 months yesterday
after admitting obstruction of justice at
Snaresbrook crown court.
Passing sentence, Judge Sandy
Canavan asked Thomas: “Do you have
any idea how many crimes are commit-
ted in London in three hours? Real
crimes with real victims. There’s all
those other victims whose calls weren’t
responded to.”
She added that by lying to the police
he had “essentially shut down policing
in the northeast of London for nearly
three hours, so nothing else was being
investigated”.
Babatunde Alabi, for the prosecu-
tion, said that all routine police work in
the area was halted to search for the
child. He added that the search had
involved officers based in Kent and
Essex, as well as from the British Trans-
port Police, the Met’s London-wide
territorial support group and a police
helicopter.
When Thomas called 999 he said
that he had parked the Audi outside a
McDonald’s in Beckton, east London,
Police duped into
hunting stolen car
by toddler hoax
just after noon on August 20 but came
out ten minutes later to find that the
car, which he had hired, was missing.
In his initial report he said that his
three-year-old son had been sleeping in
the back of the car, but when officers
arrived he told them the child was two
years old.
Thomas said that he had been to the
boy’s mother’s house to pick him up
that day but that he could not remem-
ber where she lived.
The three officers who attended were
suspicious because he had shown “no
emotion” when he told them the story,
the court was told.
Asked why he had waited more than
20 minutes between realising the car
and his son was missing and calling the
police, “he gave no explanation beyond
saying that calling the police was the
right thing to do,” Mr Alabi said.
Police finally called off the search
when they found the mother of
Thomas’s real child who had been
waiting for him at a medical centre for
a paternity test.
The car was found in the London
Fields area of Hackney.
Thomas, a convicted drug dealer, had
been on licence for a firearms offence
until three days before he called the
police, the judge said.
Appearing via videolink from Pen-
tonville prison, Thomas read an apo-
logy letter to the court saying that he
“just wanted to find the people who
stole the car and get it back”.
Hugh French, in mitigation, said:
“The motivation was to expedite the
police response to them investigating a
real crime.”
He added: “The reality is, and Mr
Thomas knows I’m going to say this,
that this was an act of rank stupidity.”John Simpson Crime Correspondent
Fire walking Admiralty Citadel in Westminster is ablaze with autumn colour thanks to the ivy that covers its 20ft-thick walls