"I don't actually know what it means": Senior judge hits out police for using a term that he doesn't understand

A senior judge has condemned the police use of the term ''County Lines'' to describe drug trafficking, declaring he doesn't 'actually know what it means.''

Judge Timothy Clayson was sentencing a drug dealer when he claimed the phrase was ''not terribly helpful,'' had ''no technical meaning'' - and dismissed it as a ''pejorative he always had an issue with''. He claimed the term had ''no accepted definition'' and did not ''add anything.''

Judge Clayson made his remarks at Bolton Crown Court whilst jailing Usman Azam, 37, for running a drugs hotline in which a mobile phone was used almost 70,000 times in just four months to deal heroin and crack cocaine. When told Azam was treated by police as a 'county lines dealer', Judge Clayson, 71, who currently sits a deputy circuit judge after retiring from his role as Honorary Recorder of the same court in 2018 said: ''County lines whilst an interesting term does not have a technical meaning does it?

READ MORE: Prison officer 'cried and asked Strangeways inmate to stop' during 'phone sex', trial hears

READ MORE: Why Chanel's tunnel return to Manchester hangs in the balance

He went on: "'It is a pejorative and a phrase of which I've always had something an issue with because I don't actually know what it means. There is no accepted definition.

''If someone were to suggest that it means highly active drug dealing then it might apply to this case but I don't think its terrible helpful. I'm not sure it adds anything. I would describe this as central involvement in a highly active drug supply enterprise on a commercial scale.''

The term 'County Lines' is originally thought to have been coined by the NSPCC to describe the transportation of illegal drugs usually children from one