Men who stored crack cocaine and heroin in their homes are jailed

Two men who used their homes as safe houses to stash drugs for a crime gang have been jailed. The pair allowed crack cocaine and heroin to be stored on behalf of a the gang's leader who ran county-lines reaching into Greater Manchester, Wirral, and Scotland.

Dale Schofield and Wayne Roberts hid the drugs at their premises on behalf of the gang’s ring-leader Mark Cavanagh of Foxdene, Ellesmere Port. He was running an estimated £1.8m drug dealing enterprise in the Ellesmere Port and Chester areas.

The 32-year-old was operating under a county lines drugs conspiracy – using a phone line – known as a graft – to send text messages known as flares advertising the sale of crack cocaine and heroin and receiving drug purchases from local users. The Dell line in Lache, a housing estate in Chester, and the Dark line in Ellesmere Port were operated, while drugs were also sold in Wirral, Greater Manchester and Scotland.

Cavanagh was estimated to have been selling between 25kg to 50kg of class A drugs. In order to keep making a substantial profit Cavanagh enlisted those he trusted to be part of his organised crime group. Schofield, aged 39, and Roberts, aged 51, were responsible for housing the drugs and the money made from them. Roberts was also responsible for couriering the money and drugs for Cavanagh and his gang.

During a 10-month operation by detectives from Cheshire Constabulary’s Serious and Organised Crime (SOCU) Schofield was observed with Cavanagh and another man moving carrier bags of drugs out of the address. The bags were then placed into the man’s taxi for onward supply.

Schofield and Roberts were sentenced at Chester Crown Court on Tuesday 5 April after pleading guilty to assisting an organised crime group. Schofield,