Swindon drugs conspirator jailed for six years and nine months

Jack Young was tailed after buying £12,000-worth of cocaine from regional suppliers in Bristol in 2018 then pulled over on the Great Western Way.

The 29-year-old, who was sentenced to six years and nine months’ imprisonment at Swindon Crown Court this week, was the last member of the gang to be sentenced.

In total, members of the gang – including a teen who had thousands of pounds worth of designer goods - have been jailed for more than 27-and-a-half years.

Jack Young's custody shot Picture: WILTSHIRE POLICE

Ashley Hunt and Nicholas Bullock, 32 and 31, were the two at the Bristol end of the chain.

Hunt was the link man – arranging drop-offs with Swindonian Kyle Rigley, 28. Bullock was the bagman; the man surveillance officers clocked handing over a shoebox-sized package to Jack Young and Rigley in Bristol on October 9, 2018.

When Young and Rigley’s Peugeot was stopped later that evening in Great Western Way, police discovered more than 120g of high-purity cocaine in the passenger footwell. They also found parts from a hydraulic press.

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At Rigley’s home in Selwood Close, near the Ocotal Way Tesco, police uncovered a crack kitchen, with evidence that someone had been “cooking” cocaine.

Quizzing officer in the case Det Sgt Neil Hilton at the trial of alleged co-conspirator Jacob Hunt last year, prosecutor Kelly Brocklehurst said: “It clearly wasn’t cakes they were baking.” The officer – part of Wiltshire Police’s organised crime squad – replied: “They didn’t have any baking tins.”

On November 28, 2018, then 16-year-old Arney Stead was arrested for an unrelated matter. His phone was seized. On it, police found Jacob Hunt’s number and the number for Jack Young.

A week later, on December 3, 2018, surveillance officers watched Young visit the Wroughton family home of Jacob Hunt – who’d bought wholesale quantities of cannabis from pal Young.

Around two hours later, Young was picked up in a hire car and taken to a street around 30m away from where Stead lived in Dixon Street, Eastcott.

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Police could not see what happened. However, when the car was stopped later that evening, police found Young in the vehicle with £4,290 and three phones.

They caught up with Young again at McDonald’s on December 12, 2018, stopping the red Mini in which he was a passenger.

Bullock, of High Street, Kingswood, admitted conspiracy to supply class A drugs and possession of criminal property. He was sentenced to seven years and four months’ imprisonment.

The crack kitchen at Rigley's flat Picture: CPS WESSEX

Ashley Hunt, of Kingrove Crescent, Chipping Sodbury, admitted conspiracy to supply class A drugs and possession of criminal property. He received eight years and two months’ imprisonment.

Arney Stead, of Dixon Street, received 18 months’ detention in a young offenders’ institution. Rigley, of Selwood Close, admitted conspiracy to supply a class A drug and possession of criminal property, and was jailed for four years.

Young, of Albany Close, admitted conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs and possession of criminal property. He was jailed for six years and nine months.

Jacob Hunt, of Augustus Avenue, Keynsham, was found not guilty of conspiracy to supply cocaine. He was given 22 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years for dealing cannabis.