'Main player' in Warwickshire drug trade jailed

[dutchman]

A ‘main player’ in the local drug trade who returned to dealing after being released on licence from a nine-year prison sentence is back behind bars



Kenroy Johns, 50, of St Andrews Crescent, Rugby, pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to charges of possessing heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine with intent to supply them.

And following an adjournment Johns, a one-time police informer in Jamaica who had been granted asylum in this country, was jailed for six years and eight months.

During the hearing at Coventry Crown Court, Deputy Judge Richard Griffith-Jones also ordered that £2,770 in cash found at Johns’ home should be confiscated under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Prosecutor Anthony Cartin said that on August 3 the police raided Johns’ home as part of Project Palladium, a co-ordinated operation to clamp down on drug-dealing in the town.

Hidden under a hedge in the garden officers found a tin containing heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine, with more of the drugs stuffed inside a football.

Altogether there were drugs with a combined street value of more than £3,000.

In the house they found scales, self-seal bags, £2,770 in cash, and a ledger showing he was owed tens of thousands of pounds for drug supplies he had made, as well as phones with messages relating to drug-dealing.

Mr Cartin pointed out that at the time Johns was on licence from a nine-year sentence imposed at Nottingham Crown Court in 2010 after he had been convicted of conspiring to supply heroin and crack cocaine.

Following his conviction in 2010 the authorities had considered deporting him, but could not do so because of the risk to him in Jamaica, so he had been made subject to home detention and prohibited from working.

It was against that background that he returned to his illegal activity, added Mr Henry.