County Lines drug dealers locked up for combined 12 years for selling heroin and crack cocaine in Scarborough

Anthony Donnelly-Ford, 24, and Luke Killeen, 32, both from Doncaster, teamed up with Scarborough criminal Nicholas Polihronos, 40, to ply their illicit trade using aliases and taking taxis to transport drugs and money around town, York Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Nadim Bashir said that Donnelly-Ford and Killeen had taken over the home of a middle-aged Scarborough woman in what is known in the trade as “cuckooing”.

The woman, who can’t be named for legal reasons, was a drug addict who allowed the two men to use her flat in the town as a dealing base.

Police raided the flat to find Killeen holding an axe above his head just yards from officers.

Mr Bashir said the woman’s home was the “business premises” for a Class A drug racket and, once settled into their new surroundings, Donnelly-Ford and Killeen recruited “trusted locals” to help them operate their County Lines operation.

As well as the named woman, the pair recruited Polihronos and another named man who were also drug users and known to police.

On May 12, 2020, police were called out to the woman’s flat following a report of a “disturbance”.

On arriving, they saw a man standing outside the flat holding “what looked like a machete”.

They found Polihronos, the female tenant and the other “recruit” sat in the living room.

The latter said he was from Lancashire, had met Polihronos in prison and was staying at his home in Scarborough.

About a week later, the same man called for a taxi, using an alias, to take him from the flat to Polihronos’s flat in Stoney Haggs Rise, telling the driver he was “going to collect his girlfriend”.

He came out of the house carrying a hold-all which he had collected from Polihronos.

Officers who just happened to be passing in a police van spoke to the named man, who again gave them a false name and was duly arrested.

They seized two bags from him which contained two mobile phones and two sets of digital weighing scales.

Later that night, a police team swooped on the named woman’s flat which she had given up to Killeen and Donnelly-Ford.

Police burst in and despite an interior door being blocked, they found the two men inside the flat.

Donnelly-Ford tried to escape through the back door as Killeen, armed with a black-handled axe, raised the weapon above his head.

He was chased by a police constable and disarmed.

He was searched in the back yard and found in possession of “white rocks” worth up to £615 and about £920 cash.

Inside the flat were mobile phones, rolls of foil and a “large number of offensive weapons” including a nail hammer, a claw hammer and the axe.

They also found some amphetamine on a kitchen table, along with weighing scales, about five pairs of latex gloves with the finger ends cut off and “multiple wraps of Class A drugs”.

Police then turned their attention to Polihronos’s flat in Stoney Haggs Rise where the man who used the alias had been staying.

There was no-one at the property, but officers found drugs worth up to £5,550.

A mobile seized from Donnelly-Ford in the earlier raid showed he had regularly been booking taxis to the flat in Stoney Haggs Rise in May 2020 “for Nicholas Polihronos to deal on his behalf”.

The dealers knew him as “Scarborough Nick”.

Polihronos, a “drug runner” and heroin user, was still at large a year later when, in the early hours of June 10, 2021, a tenant at a flat in Wash Beck Close, Scarborough, woke up to find he had been burgled.

Polihronos and another man crept in through a window and stole items including the man’s wallet, driving licence, bank card, £190 cash, some Euros and a laptop.

The bank card had been used at about 2.20am that morning to buy food, alcohol and scratch cards worth just under £50.

Polihronos, who is heavily convicted, admitted burglary and being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs.

Donnelly-Ford and Killeen each admitted two counts of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply.

Killeen also admitted affray in relation to the axe incident and Donnelly-Ford admitted a separate offence of being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs in cahoots with Polihronos.

The middle-aged Scarborough woman ultimately admitted allowing her premises to be used for drug-related activity.

The four defendants appeared for sentence on Friday, April 28.

A bench warrant for the arrest of the fifth man was still outstanding.

Mr Bashir said that Polihronos, who had used 11 aliases in the past, had 29 previous convictions for 63 offences including manslaughter with robbery, burglary, shoplifting, criminal damage, violence, public disorder, handling stolen goods, drug matters, possessing an offensive weapon and theft from

a vehicle.

He had been recalled to prison following the new offences to serve the remainder of his 12-year jail sentence for manslaughter and robbery.

Killeen, who had used two aliases in the past, had previous convictions including one for cannabis production.

Defence counsel for Donnelly-Ford, a former roofer from Thorne, said he had been “living in Scarborough for the purposes of drug supply”.

Killeen’s counsel said the father-of-two had previously worked as a plumber.

Defence counsel for the “vulnerable” Scarborough woman, who also had previous convictions, said she had drug-related mental-health issues and made “little or no financial gain” from the drug plot.

She was “somewhat the victim of cuckooing”.

Judge Sean Morris jailed Polihronos for four years and eight months.

Donnelly-Ford was jailed for three years and nine months.

Killeen, of Bawtry Road, Bessacarr, was jailed for three years and seven months.

The Scarborough woman received an 18-month community order with a six-month drug- rehabilitation programme and 30 days’ rehabilitation activity.