Drugs factory couple jailed

Drugs factory couple jailed

13 March 2015

A JUDGE has jailed a pregnant mother-of-three who admitted allowing a cocaine factory on her farm.

Christine Clifford (31) and her husband Robert Clifford (32) will both spend six months in jail before spending a year on licence.

At Downpatrick Crown Court on Friday Judge Piers Grant QC said their crimes were “very serious.”

However, he remarked that most “humane” way of sentencing for the sake of their children was to stagger the prison terms. This means Christine Clifford will serve her six months first followed by her husband.

The pair allowed their property on the Derryboy Road, Crossgar, to be used in a UK-wide cocaine distribution plot, which was uncovered in a police raid in August 2013. Three co-accused with more significant roles were handed more than 20 years in jail sentences between them at an earlier hearing.

The head of the operation, 48-year-old Edward Dunn, was given a nine-year term, lorry driver John Harvey (51) was handed an eight-year term while one-time UDA blackmailer Terence McCrory (52) was jailed for three and a half years.

Downpatrick Crown Court heard that Christine Clifford was a niece of McCrory and that her farm was where the cocaine was set to be cut, bagged and shipped on to be sold. The amount of the Class A drug seized by police was around 1.4 kilos, which would have netted around £262,000 for the gang.

Although both Cliffords changed their pleas to guilty after initially planning to go to trial, Judge Grant said Christine Clifford — mother to three young children aged 11, four and eight months — was still denying knowledge of what took place at her property. He said the “comings and goings” at the site would have been clear to her and noted the rural premises had been chosen for their relative isolation.

“It was some distance away from other habitable premises,” he said. “These are serious offences you are facing, you are in a property where there are drugs for distribution…going to go on to the streets of Northern Ireland.”

He told the couple: “That is very serious offending, that you encourage others to take up and use drugs for the first time, or if not for the first time to encourage others to do so.”

Referring to Christine Clifford’s current pregnancy, Judge Grant said: “You must have known you were at a high risk of going into prison for this serious offence.”

He added: “I have no doubt her pregnancy can be dealt with within the confines of the prison regime.”

Judge Grant said Robert Clifford had “significant mental health problems” but also saw no reason why these could not be addressed in prison.

Making the custodial part of their sentences less than half of the overall 18-month term, Judge Grant said he was doing this “in the interest of the young children in particular.”

“It is obviously undesirable to have both parents in custody and children deprived of any parents at all,” he said.

At Wednesday’s sentencing for the three co-accused, prosecuting QC David McDowell told the court: “As far as the pecking order is concerned, Edward Dunn is at the head, Terence McCrory is second and John Harvey third.”

Ordering the defendants to spend half their sentences in jail and half on supervised licence, Judge Grant said he was satisfied they had all played "significant roles" in what he described as a "well planned, well set up and sophisticated operation.”

Back in 1996, North Belfast man McCrory, from Benview Park in the Old Park area of the city, was jailed after he admitted offences of blackmail and being a member of a proscribed organisation, namely the UDA. 

Last month the court heard how he ran across fields as undercover police raided his niece's home in Crossgar when they were investigating a cocaine smuggling and production plot. He was arrested a week later. 

He denied involvement at the time, but, like Dunn and Harvey, pleaded guilty to possessing class A cocaine with intent to supply.

Mr. McDowell outlined how undercover police had kept Dunn, from Tyndale Grove, and Harvey, from the Ardoyne Road, under surveillance as they met as "various service stations" across the UK and later swooped on the Cliffords’ home, uncovering bags of cocaine at various purity levels, including some already bagged and ready to be sold and some in mixing bowls. 

Police also found a hydraulic press, latex gloves, self sealing plastic bags and commonly used cutting agents Benzocaine and Glucose. 

While Dunn was caught just a few fields away, both he and McCrory were able to be linked with the cocaine factory by DNA evidence, while mobile phone and surveillance evidence connected Harvey. 

The day before the raid, police watched as Dunn waited on Harvey for two hours at a motorway service station in Kent before handing him a rucksack. The pair travelled separately to the ferry terminal in Scotland. 

As with their previous "dry runs," Harvey brought his lorry over on the ferry, while Dunn left his van behind and later hired a Ford Transit van.

The Transit was sitting parked outside the Cliffords’ home as police from the Organised Crime Branch forced their way into the house. As they went in the front door, Dunn and McCrory made a break for it out the back. 

In a shed, police found over a kilo of cocaine of 15 per cent purity stashed in five plastic bags, 88.4 grammes at 16 per cent purity in a mixing bowl along with a spoon which had McCrory's DNA on it and a further 262 grammes at a striking 74 per cent pure in a plastic bag. 

"All of this indicates that this wasn't just a street level operation,” Mr. McDowell said. 

That sentiment was echoed by Judge Grant, who said that in addition to being well planned and sophisticated, the crimes were aggravated by reason of Dunn and Harvey having previous convictions for drug dealing. 

As well as the jail terms, the judge imposed Serious Crime Prevention Orders on all three, to run for five years for Dunn and Harvey and for three years in relation to McCrory.