Trio jailed for drugs conspiracy

LIAM Duffy, James Delaney and David Hazelhurst

A CHADDERTON man was one of a trio behind a racket to flood Greater Manchester with more than £10 million worth of heroin, cocaine and ecstasy.

The three men had 36,000 ecstasy tablets, 12 kilos of cocaine and a quarter of a kilo of heroin worth a total of £650,000.

But they also had cutting agents to mix with the class A drugs and maximise their profits, worth an estimated £9.5 million.

Yesterday, a judge jailed them for a total of nearly 30 years.

Officers from the National Crime Agency stopped a car with Liam Duffy (36), of no fixed abode, and his associate David Hazelhurst (37), of Tomlinson Street, Moston, inside last year.

They found concealed in the rear footwells two kilos of cocaine and two kilos of a mixture of caffeine and paracetamol - a cocktail often used to bulk out class A drugs to maximise profit.

A number of bags were found in a holdall at Delaney's home which together contained approximately 9kg of cocaine

Hazelhurst's flat was searched and officers found a further kilo of cocaine, quarter of a kilo of heroin, 36,000 MDMA (ecstasy) tablets, 45 kilos of cutting agents and drug paraphernalia used to cut and mix drugs. Shortly before his arrest in October 2015, Duffy had visited his cousin, James Delaney (40), of Selkirk Road, Chadderton.

When the property was searched, an additional nine kilos of cocaine was found hidden in bags in an upstairs wardrobe and Delaney was arrested.

The three men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class A drugs, with Hazelhurst additionally charged with possessing heroin and MDMA with intent to supply - to which he also pleaded guilty.

Yesterday at Manchester Crown Court, Duffy was sentenced to 12 years in prison, Hazelhurst was jailed for nine years and seven months, and Delaney was jailed for eight years. Craig Watson, operations manager from the National Crime Agency (NCA), said: "Class A drugs cost lives, generate violence and fund other crime, yet these men saw them only as a commodity for making money.

"The concealments they designed for transporting the drugs show how serious they were about continuing their corrupt business, but we have stopped them.

"The NCA is determined to prevent criminals profiting from the misery that Class A drugs cause, and to ensure they are held to account."