Council home drugs family jailed

Barry Warden and his wife gave the impression of being a poor couple

Eight members of a family-run drugs cartel which generated hundreds of thousands of pounds have been jailed.

The family kept up a carefully nurtured image of being poor and unemployed while raking in huge profits, Cambridge Crown Court was told.

They ran the operation from a former council house in Belt Drove, near Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.

Barry Warden, 60, his wife Mavis, 54, and their son Richard, 28, were each sentenced to 10 years.

HIDING PLACES What police found and where they found it In detail

Barry Warden's daughter Betty Warden, 33, received 18 months while Barry Junior, 27, was given five years.

Gary Muller, 27, received seven years; Stephanie Lack, 25, was given 12 months; and Grant Rider, 23, got three-and-a-half years.

Daniel Ward, 26, Daniel Brown, 27, Neil Cousins, 25, and Peter Ardener, 26, were given community service orders because of time already spent in prison on remand.

The business supplied cocaine and cannabis throughout Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk.

Class A drugs have become a scourge, corrupt and destroy lives and the impact on the community is all too clear Judge Jonathan Haworth

The court heard that about £41,000 was spent by undercover police buying drugs as part of the operation to infiltrate the cartel.

Officers travelled to the West Indies to befriend members of the gang in June 2003, Cambridge Crown Court was told.

Between October 2003 and April 2004 they bought drugs on 13 separate occasions from the gang.

Sentencing them, Judge Jonathan Haworth said: "It was rare that distributors were apprehended and even rarer that an operation was successfully infiltrated and prosecuted.

"The evidence gathered by the undercover police officers was so overwhelming that it resulted in 12 guilty pleas.

A speedboat was among assets seized in the hamlet of Begdale

"Before the court today are the ringleaders, the directors of the illegal operation, encouraging potential buyers and facilitating the mechanics of individual deals."

He said the Warden family's trusted friends were "drawn to the family home like moths to a flame, who basked in a reflected wealth and power".

Judge Haworth, who praised the police's undercover work and investigation, added: "The scale of the operation is clear from the evidence.

"It was one family business with established source of supply."

He said police found a sophisticated and effective business dealing with significant quantities of drugs.

"Class A drugs have become a scourge, corrupt and destroy lives and the impact on the community is all too clear."