Wigan men were key members of colossal £53m cocaine supply network, court hears

Carlisle Crown Court heard how vast quantities of the illicit substance — generally shipped into the country from overseas into ports and then transported to Greater Manchester and Liverpool — were distributed by criminal couriers to many towns and cities across the British mainland.

Their destinations included Newcastle and the south Lakes, where one of the plotters, 31-year-old Reece Barnes, of Elim Grove, of Bowness-on-Windermere, kept the cocaine in a lock-up near his home.

“The quantities of drugs in the overall conspiracy in this case are truly massive,” prosecutor Tim Evans told a jury. “The scope of the overall conspiracy is countrywide. It features Blackpool and the Fylde coast, it features Yorkshire, various places in the Midlands, South Wales and various parts of England, Wales and Scotland.

Evidence pointed to two main criminal players - Andrew Stephens, 41, of East Field Drive, Golborne, and 45-year-old Simon Buller, of Freshfield Avenue, Atherton - moving 232kg between them during an illegal enterprise which ran from March 1 2022 to May 25 last year.

Other people had been involved in the movement of a further 70kg or 80kg, taking the total amount to at least 300kg.

A wholesale value of the haul was said to be in the region of £6m, with a police drug expert estimating the street value of cocaine transported during the overall enterprise being somewhere between £35m and £53m.

The focus of detectives was first trained on Cumbria as multiple 1kg shipments were brought into Windermere and three men were arrested and brought before Carlisle Crown Court.

The cocaine had been supplied to Barnes, who stored cocaine in the lock-up before onward supply; with Cain Turner, 32, of no fixed address, a “highly active courier”; and Stephen Stockall, 62, of Well Lane, Weaverham, in Cheshire, a dealer.

“Much of the evidence you will hear in this trial will be to do with the movement of drugs into Windermere,” said Mr Evans.

“Once the police get the first two or three (people) in this case, they can then look at phones, they look at webs of contact that spread out from this, starting in Windermere. It spread out countrywide and blew up massively, quantity-wise.”

Turner; Anthony Warhurst, 58, of Knowsley Street, Leigh; Thomas Whittaker, 45, of Brierfield, Digmoor, Skelmersdale; and Michael Evans, 36, of no fixed address; all seemed to operate as couriers of the drug in “very significant quantities”, said the prosecutor.

Daryll Preston, 36, of Hampson Street, Atherton, acted as a middle man.

All nine, jurors heard, admit conspiring to supply the class A controlled drug.

A 10th man, 33-year-old Scott Owen, of Salisbury Way, Tyldesley, denies any part in the conspiracy. Evidence, said Mr Evans, showed he was in contact and socialised with some of those who pleaded guilty.

“Was this defendant also playing an active role in the conspiracy?” Mr Evans asked. “He says not. He is having his trial. You decide that.

“You don’t hold against him the fact that other people have pleaded guilty. You know there is a conspiracy. You still have to decide whether he is part of it as well.”

After Mr Evans’s opening of the case concludes today, the jury will begin hearing evidence.

Proceeding