Cocaine ‘lynchpin’ guilty of conspiracy

A MAN said to be the lynchpin in a huge Oldham-based drugs business has been found guilty of conspiracy to supply cocaine.

A trial jury heard how 49-year old Barry McLaren had been a central figure in an operation involving three other men. The others previously pleaded guilty to the same charge, but McLaren denied any part in it despite admitting his involvement with two of them in a similar cannabis business.

Gary Woodhall, prosecuting said: “It makes it frankly inconceivable that he was not involved in this conspiracy to supply cocaine.”

Manchester Crown Court was told all four men had been arrested after a police operation. Raids were then made on two Oldham addresses last July in which commercial quantities of cocaine worth up to £66,000 were seized.

At the second address, officers found wraps of cocaine inside a metal box hidden inside a TV set.

McLaren, of Marshall Court, Oldham, had been the single point of contact between the alleged ringleader Mohammed Ali Tubsaum (35) and the two “store men” Andrew Winterbottom (50) and Philip Brooker (44).

Mobile phone data showed no direct phone contact between the other three, but that McLaren was the central player in touch with all three separately.

All four will be sentenced on Friday.