Police raided a drug dealer’s home in York and found a ninja sword and zombie machete, along with stashes of heroin and crack cocaine.
Officers found three men inside the flat in Fourth Avenue including Jamal Banghura, 23, who had a machete at his feet, York Crown Court heard.
Banghura, from London, and York man Gareth Harley, 34, were dealers in a County Lines supply network which was active over several months during the summer and autumn of last year.
Harley, who acted as a street dealer, was arrested on 3 September last year when police received a tip-off that he was riding an e-scooter in Fifth Avenue.
“Officers pulled alongside him, he got on the scooter and rode away,” said prosecutor Harry Crowson.
They followed him as he turned a corner and fell of the scooter. He was duly arrested.
Officers then raided Harley’s flat in nearby Fourth Avenue and found Banghura with two other unnamed men. One of them was bagging up drugs and Banghura “had a machete at his feet”.
Police also seized £1,000 cash from him and found just under 7g of crack cocaine and about 8g of heroin.
Mobile phones linked to the drug line were also seized and showed that Harley had been operating as a street dealer in York “for a period of months” between June and September last year under “some form of direction” from others.
He was charged with being concerned in the supply of heroin and crack cocaine and admitted the offences.
Banghura, of Trenchard Close, Collingwood, London, was charged with possessing heroin and crack with intent to supply. He too admitted the offences.
Both men appeared for sentence yesterday (Monday) after being remanded in custody.
Two further charges they each faced of possessing offensive weapons, namely a ninja sword and a zombie machete, were allowed to lie on the court’s file.
Mr Crowson said these charges had been withdrawn “given the number of people in the address” which meant that it would be difficult to pinpoint who owned them.
Struggline with addiction
Mr Crowson said that Harley had ten previous offences including serious violence, affray and drug dealing. In 2020, he received a suspended prison sentence for possession with intent to supply Class B drugs.
Banghura had seven previous offences on his record including robberies and drug possession for which he received a three-year jail sentence in 2021.
Defence barrister Zarreen Alan-Cheetham, for Harley, said the “driving factor” of (his) offending is drugs”.
“He has struggled all his life with drug addiction,” she added. “When he came out of prison in 2014, he became addicted to heroin.”
She said that Harley, a father-of-three, had since beaten his addiction.
Defence counsel for Banghura, a former painter-and-decorator, said he accrued a drug debt after going to a festival in Leeds and started dealing to pay it off.
Judge Sean Morris said that Harley had blown the chance he had given him in 2020 when he received a suspended jail sentence for drug dealing, “so obviously you are in a more serious position than your co-accused”.
He told Banghura: “When the drugs flat was raided you were sitting with a machete at your feet.”
He noted Banghura’s “serious” previous convictions for “offences of all sorts”. He told both defendants: “Supplying drugs causes misery.”
Harley was jailed for three years and ten months. Banghura was given a three-year prison sentence.
The defendants were told they would probably serve less than half of their respective sentences behind bars before being released on prison licence.
The two other men who were inside the flat during the police raid were arrested and charged but the prosecution later offered no evidence against them.
